Google Gets Fresh on Kim Kardashian

Yesterday, Google announced that they have made a major change to their search algorithm, what they are calling their “Freshness” update.  They say it effects 35% of all querries, so it’s huge right?  Well, yes and no.  Sure, it will effect the Kim Kardashian searches, but how will this effect you?  Let’s fine out.

What’s the change?
The way the change works is that Google is trying to do a better job identifying search terms that are best suited for recent information and then serve up the most recent information on the topic.  There are some topics for which people want up to the minute info.  For example, if I search “score of Bucs game”, I’m probably looking for the current score of the current Bucs game, not the score of some game in 1996 or even last week’s game.  On the other hand, there are some topics, like recipes or how to articles, for which freshness isn’t important.  Just because a recipe is new, doesn’t mean it’s good.  So, for those searches, Google is not changing the results.

How is this changing results?
For queries that  Google thinks needs fresh information, Google is now putting recent posts at the top of the search results.  Google also is putting some information directly into the search results, like the scores of games, the stock market data, etc. (though Google’s been doing that for a while).

What keywords are effected?
From what people are seeing right now, this is primarily effecting 4 types of keywords:

1. Head keywords (very general keywords).  These are keywords like “football”, or “olympics”,  or “presidential race”.
2. Celebrity names.  When people search for “Kim Kardashian”, they probably want the most recent gossip.  (is this really a good thing?)
3. Current news topics.  If there is an earthquake in California, Google will try to deliver the most recent information about that earthquake.
4. TV shows and the like.

35% of querries, but not keywords.
Google saying that this update effects 35% of queries sounds big, but it’s not actually as big as you may think.  Keep in mind queries and keywords are two different things.  If you have 100 keywords that get, on average, 1000 searches per day, but one of those keywords is very popular and gets 200 queries a day on its own, then changing the results for that one, popular keyword will effect  20% of the queries.  Since most of the keywords that are being effected are extremely popular (head keywords and hot topics), there are actually a relatively small number of keywords being effected.

What do you need to do?
How this will effect your website and what you need to do about it depends on what topics your website is about.  If you have a church site and you’re trying to rank well in searches for churches in your town, then this change probably isn’t going to effect you. If you have a ministry site that publishes articles about theological issues or even issues that people struggle with (like alcoholism or gambling), this change probably won’t effect you.  These aren’t topics that demand freshness.  On the other hand, if you have a Christian TV and movie review site, this will probably effect your rankings.  I also think it’s possible some businesses may be effected when new products or new versions of products are released, though from the searches I’ve performed so far I don’t see this happening yet.

If you have a website that deals with topics that require freshness, here are a few things you can do to help your rankings:

• Put out regular updates if the topic is ongoing in nature.  So, if you review TV shows, you need to be putting out content every time a new episode airs.  If you discuss current news, you need to keep posting updates on stories.
• Use RSS.  There is some evidence that Google is, at least in part, using RSS feeds to get these fresh search results.  So, make sure you have an active RSS feed.  Also, Google owns Feedburner.  So, it would make sense if Google is using information from Feedburner in its results, including how popular a post is.  So, it may be wise to setup a feedburner account for your RSS feed.
• Encourage sharing.  Google is using more than just freshness to determine what pages appear in their search results.  It’s likely that retweets, sharing in Facebook (to the extent that Google can see it), and especially sharing on Google+ and people +1’ing pages has an impact on the search rankings.  Since this is good for SEO anyway and really good for getting visitors to your site, you should be doing this anyway.

So, in the end, while this is a pretty big update, it’s probably not as big as it sounds.  Most of the keywords churches, schools, ministries, and even businesses target are not keywords that demand freshness, but we’ll have to keep an eye on this and see how it all plays out.

What do you think?

Are you seeing changes in your search results?