Ten Most Current Improvements in Googles Algorithm

In continuation with our series of blog posts about the processes as well as methodology involved in search engine evaluation, ranking and algorithmic changes, we would like to give you this time some updates on the most current improvements in algorithm.

These are the top 10 highlights of the many algorithmic improvements made by Google just recently.

Snippets.
Snippets are now improved with more page content and less header. With this change, Google is more likely to use text found in the actual page content and less likely to use text from the header or menu. This way, more relevant texts are now being used in snippets.

Page Title.
Page titles are better now. Google uses a new technique which is done by de-duplicating boilerplate anchors. Before the change was implemented, they were using duplicated anchor texts but the page titles were not as relevant. Now, they are putting less emphasis on these anchor texts and concentrated more on de-duplicated boilerplate anchors. The result is fantastic. More relevant titles about specific page content are displayed in the search result.

Cross-language information retrieval.
There is also a recent improvement in the information retrieval for languages where limited Web contents are available. This new feature is available in Malay, Slovak, Afrikaans, Swahili, Hindi, Serbian and several other languages. Google will now translate relevant English Web pages in a particular language and display them just below the English title in the result list. This feature used to be available in Korean only, but now it has expanded to several other languages. When you click the translated title, you will be redirected to the page with translated content.

Extended coverage of application-rich snippets.
Other details about a particular software application such as its cost and user reviews will now be displayed in the search result. The coverage of application-rich snippets is now extended and they will be available more frequently.

Autocomplete length-based Russian predictions.
Google will no longer make autocomplete Russian predictions that are very long as compared to the partial query. The same is true for other predictions relating to that same partial query. This improvement is already being done in English and now they are extending the same feature in Russian.

Image Search.
As more changes in the Web are continually developing, there are signals which used to be very effective in the past but no longer have a significant impact now. In this regard, Google decided to retire a signal in Image Search connected with images that had references from several documents in the Web.

Official Page Detection.
Official page detection is now more refined to give users the most relevant and authoritative results pertaining to a particular query. Official Web sites will now rank higher than others.

More Current Results.
A significant improvement on how fresh contents are ranked has just recently been implemented. The impact of this is around 35% of the total searches.

Date-restricted searches.
When a user specifies a date range for a particular query, fresh contents ranking are now handled differently. It is now enhanced to ensure that users will have the most relevant results pertaining to the specified date range.

Prediction fix for IME queries.
Autocomplete now handles IME queries better than before. The change was done to prevent irrelevant and sometimes gibberish predictions for Hebrew, Arabic and Russian.

These are just ten of the most current improvements in search algorithms. Remember that Google makes hundred of them in a given year. And these changes may not work as you might imagine them. So if you are a Web site owner, an SEO specialist or are just greatly impacted with these changes in algorithm, you should think twice before changing everything the way you handle your Web presence.

The processes and methodology involved in search ranking is ever-changing. Every time something new is introduced, it somehow excites us. Please let us know what your thoughts are about the changes in algorithm and we will try our best to keep you updated on this topic.