5 Ways to Beat Google's Farmer Update Algorithm that Targets Content Farms Dev Basu , Powered by Search - Mar 8, 2011

Recently, Google made a massive change to its index, known as the Farmer Update, which affected more than 12% of US search queries. Although Google makes over 500+ changes to its algorithm or 'secret recipe' for ranking search results, this change will be its biggest yet, with other such changes having occurred in 2003's Florida Update,  and 2009's Vince Update . To put this into perspective, several billion search results will be impacted and sites which do not offer up content that passes Google's algorithmic filters stand to lose a lot of traffic.

If your small business depends on search engine traffic to thrive and grow, then you may have noticed some key changes that occurred as a result of the new change:

• Your rankings may have dropped recently.
• You may have noticed more long tail search traffic but decreasing traffic from shorter phrases.
• You may have noticed your article marketing efforts yielding diminishing returns.

What kind of sites are subject to this algorithmic change?

• Content Farms. Examples include Demand Media, eHow, Huffington Post, Mahalo, and Article Marketing sites.
• E-Commerce Sites which do not have substantive or unique content on product descriptions. This is typical of data-feed driven e-commerce sites.
• Scraper Websites. Websites which syndicate or scrape or steal content from other sites and then repost it.
• Coupon Driven Websites. Like e-commerce sites, these do not generally provide substantially unique or useful content.

   

As per Google's blog post, high quality sites with "original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on," will tend to rank higher in the search results, and be rewarded for their editorial contributions with greater traffic.

Here are five steps to take preventive measures against the algorithmic update. Please note that if you feel your site has been hit unfairly, the best recourse is to submit a reconsideration request once you've attended to the items below.

1. Run Copyscape on Existing Content. If your SEO efforts have involved article marketing, press release writing, then run a CopyScape check to see how unique this content is. If your content is largely similar to other content in CopyScape's database, then consider that to be a warning signal.
2. Re-Write and Update Existing Content. Perhaps that guide you wrote or that FAQ section of your website needs an update. Now is the best time to do it to ensure you have fresh content that better serves your customers.
3. Vet Your Link Targets. The Sistrix blog and Search Engine Land have great coverage on which particular domains have been hit the hardest. Avoid seeking links from these domains, since they have diminishing returns for your marketing effort and time.
4. Block Scraper Sites. Although a more complex procedure, you can include the rel=canonical tag on your content if you know it gets scraped by low quality scraper sites. Tynt is another great solution which places and automatic link back to your site in case your content is manually copied and pasted by someone else.
5. Add Unique Content if You Rely on Data Feeds. If you run an affiliate or e-commerce site which relies on merchant data feeds, you're likely to have the exact same content as other sites using the same feed. Make an effort to add user generated content, reviews, or extended product descriptions to make your content more authoritative. Crowdsourced tools, such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk, are a terrific resource to get this to happen on a large scale within a manageable cost.