Google Explains What It Means To Be Part Of The “Core” Algorithm

Barry Schwartz on January 21, 2016

Last week’s news that Panda is part of Google’s core ranking algorithm has gotten SEOs buzzing about what exactly being part of the core algorithm means. Now, Google has shared some more information about that, saying that the algorithm is consistent enough to not require many changes in the future and can run with less hand-holding.

In a Q&A with Google’s Andrey Lipattsev, he spends a good amount of time explaining the confusion around what it means to be part of the “core” algorithm, and also why it is hard to sometimes define a Google update.

The video starts at around 8 minutes in, where Andrey Lipattsev, a search quality senior strategist at Google, said in regard to what core means:

It is less about the functionality, which means it probably doesn’t change that much over time, and it is more about how we perceive it, in the context of the algorithm. Do we still think this is an experimental thing, it is running for a while and we aren’t sure how long it will last? Or is it like PageRank, it is part of it, it will always be there, at least in the foreseeable future and then probably call it in certain context part of the core algorithm.

He also cites how Gary Illyes from Google tried to explain it on Google+ with this analogy:

I think this is really the worst takeaway of the past few days, but imagine an engine of a car. It used to be that there was no starter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starter_[engine]), the driver had to go in front of the car and use some tool to start the engine. Today we have starters in any petrol engine, it’s integrated. It became more convenient, but essentially nothing changed.

For a user or even a webmaster it should not matter at all which components live where, it’s really irrelevant, and that’s why I think people should focus on these “interesting” things less.

Andrey Lipattsev explains that Gary meant here that Panda is now part of the core ranking algorithm, and it means they do not need to know how it runs any more. It’s been tested, it works, and it can now run by itself without much worry.

Ammon Johns, in the hangout, then said, “Once they forgot how it works, it is core?” To which Andrey Lipattsev replied, “That is exactly right.”

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Google Has Penalized A Link Network In Japan

Barry Schwartz on February 5, 2016

This morning, on the Google Japanese Webmaster Blog, Google announced it has targeted a link network in Japan for using practices against the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Specifically, the link network was trying to artificially inflate the PageRank and trust factors of websites through buying, selling and trading links with the sole intent of ranking higher in Google’s search results.

The translated version, via Google Translate, of the blog post reads:

As part of this effort, Google this time, in order to operate illegally search result link program has undergone a countermeasure against some of the site network of the Japanese had done the buying and selling of participating in the link. Among this is because it was also included sites that repeatedly Webmaster Guidelines violation, was subjected to severe measures than normal in some cases.

In addition, we tell even before, there seems to be the case that measures would be carried out, such as violation of the Webmaster Guidelines in place without the knowledge of the webmaster. Previously it introduced the example of SEO firms, but it seems there is also be generated by the outsourcing of such advertising not only SEO skilled in the art. In order to prevent this, the webmaster you we recommend that you check from time to time and see whether subcontractors are doing what measures.

The last time Google officially confirmed hitting a link network with a penalty was back in November 2014, when Google targeted a Polish-based link network. Google did take action on many link networks back in 2014 but has focused more of their attention, at least communication-wise, on mobile spam and redirects.

Content copy from http://searchengineland.com/google-has-penalized-a-link-network-in-japan-241867

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