There has been some talk about new changes to Google’s search algorithm. A few people have asked me about it, some even in a panic. The changes, as best can be discerned from Google PR, speeches and blogs, seem to be pretty basic:
1. Content Duplication
It is pretty clear that changes to the Google algorithm that reward original content and penalize duplicate content have been made or will be made shortly. Of course, this is nothing new. The question is how far Google will go to clean up spam sites. Google actually makes money off of many spam sites because they are loaded to the hilt with Adsense. Their motivation to remove blatant scraped or cloned content from the index probably exceeds these profit considerations, but Google seems to usually wait until criticism or competitive pressures from search companies mounts before tweaking the algorithm.
Sites worried about category pages, tag pages, archives, etc. being deemed as duplicate content do not need to panic. It looks like the target is not the source site, but the scrapers and cloners. Still, it is a good idea to have a proper XML sitemap indexed by Google. Stay with the simple strategy of original content, link building and authority.
2. European Union
Google has been facing regulatory battles in Europe over the search market for a few years. Now Google has hinted via comments by execs that the search engine algorithm could be changed to appease regulators and settle the case. This comment has been overblown (by some) to imply radical changes to the algorithm and search engines results pages (SERPs). As if one day we will wake up and the SERPS will be all topsy-turvy.
Not likely.
Google will placate the regulators, but in the end – you can expect that the algorithm will survive as a pure mathematical formula and not a toy for regulators to politicize.
Clark Schultz Blog 