Google is changing the way it ranks websites in search results, by changing its famous, mysterious algorithm so that sites deemed “intuitively low quality” get lower rankings. Takeaway digital editor Jim Colgan looks at what’s changing and why Google is doing it now. Google introduced that change last Thursday and we spoke to the head of the company’s web spam team, Matt Cutts, along with Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of the new book, “The Googlization of Everything.”
There’s an interesting analysis of the sites that have been affected over at Quora and SearchEngineLand. Turns out Demand Media’s eHow has not suffered as expected (in fact it may have benefited), but Yahoo’s user-generated Associated Content took a dive in rankings.