Last week Google introduced a freshness update which is expected to impact around 35% of search queries. The update aims to build on Google’s previous Caffeine update (which allowed Google to crawl and index pages on the web much quicker and on a larger scale) and will result in much fresher results for queries which Google feels warrants the ‘freshness’ treatment.
Google’s aim is to rank more timely content for queries which deserve those types of results, such as ‘best slr cameras’ or ‘premier league results’. Whilst these queries don’t indicate a time period, in most cases the searcher will be looking for an up to date result, not one from 6 months ago.
Google’s Amit Singhal said:
“Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old.”
The example given by Singhal below for 'occupy oakland protesters' shows how this update works, with all results from the last 7 hours:
So what does this mean for businesses and SEOs?
What’s clear is that business and brands need to be on top of their PR activity now more than ever. Likewise, SEOs can’t rest on their laurels for phrases which previously may have yielded great traffic. If you’ve had your feet up and been relying on traffic coming through headline phrases which now fall into the ‘freshness’ basket ,then you may find that ranking in the top 3 positions is now far less effective as new, fresher results jump above you and straight to the top.
This also has serious implications for brands that no longer have the security of dominating page 1 for their brand related searches. Previously this could be done with Facebook pages, directory profiles and other tactics which prevented any negative publicity from gaining traction on page 1 for your brand. However, this update means that any negative press that your brand receives online could jump straight to the top of the search results and potentially damage your online reputation and conversions. The only way to counter this is to ensure you are avoiding negative press in the first place and by staying on top of your own
online PR activity to ensure you are the source of the freshest news about your brand.
I was slightly disappointed to find when I searched for ‘
google freshness update’ that all but one of the results on page 1 were from the last week. Nice and fresh. Looks like the Google Gods have done a decent job...
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