Why you just can’t afford to have your site hacked

Google Algorithm Changes to Target Spam – and We Think It’s a Great Idea!

Google has recently announced they are making efforts to target hacked spam – providing users and webmasters with an extra layer of protection. Our team of geeks think this is a fantastic idea, and one that will change search algorithms for the better. It’s thought that the new changes will affect around 5% of queries on Google and will reduce the number of hacked websites from showing up on the search engine results page. It’s certainly got a lot of people talking, and even Matt Cutts – former head of the web spam team at Google – posted the exciting new development on his Twitter page.

So, what can we expect? Well, once the changes have been rolled out, search users might notice that only the most relevant results for a query show up on the SERP, which could decrease the number of results on the page. For example, if you’re used to seeing ten results for a particular search query, this might be reduced to eight. This will prevent users from clicking on websites that have been hacked – increasing their security online. Google has revealed that the algorithm changes will change about 5% of queries on Google; however, this will depend on the language used.

Our team of geeks think that the new changes might take some time getting used to but according to Google, they should improve in the “near future”. The benefits? Hacked websites will be harder to find and Google will continue to improve their algorithms to make their search pages even more relevant to a particular query. However, the changes could dramatically change the look of a search engine results page…

Currently, Google has a number of measures to prevent users from accessing hacked or unsafe websites. Web users who have installed the web browser Google Chrome are also notified if a website is unsafe or when a page is trying to load scripts from “unauthenticated sources”. We think that getting rid of spammy websites, or pages that might contain malware or illegal goods is a fantastic idea. Well done Google!

To further illustrate the new development, Google gave an announcement with an example of a search results page having a quarter of its search results removed after the algorithm changes. Although SERPs for all search queries won’t be this extreme, it proves what a huge change this will be for both webmasters and users alike. In fact, SERPs could begin to get significantly smaller and only return results that are relevant and beneficial to the search user.