More on new google search algorithm & the "Starred Search Result"  from InspectAPedia.com

Previously we posted that InspectAPedia.com, a Free Encyclopedia of Building & Environmental Inspection, Testing, Diagnosis, Repair, develops original, in-depth, researched, cited, peer reviewed content but nonetheless we found ourselves (as worry many other writers here) the clean baby tossed out with the dirty bathwater - bathwater being the poor or no content pages or made-for-adsense pages.

It's worrisome that pages Google's new search ranks above solid content for us and other writers here are too often pure-advertisements or worse, "Q&A" content farm pages that at least for the ones we review in our areas of expertise, are nearly content free or worse, uninformed or even dangerously inaccurate. Lacking authority. Like a carpenter writing a "how to" article on brain surgery.

Writers dedicated to useful accurate content development find ourselves in the dark about just what's wrong in the new search algorithm and how it may sometimes parse good content badly and parse bad content as "good". We're guessing at diagnosing our own website traffic loss.

1. Encyclopedic websites offering depth of content also divide content into sometimes very brief topic specific answers to suit reader queries. Short and to the point pleases a reader looking for a reliable, accurate, but very specific answer. But such text may  not parse well for search.

2. Encyclopedic websites covering a range of topics as we do (most building and indoor environment topics), may see, as we do, an effort by Google to provide a "starred" link to our website that not only does not work, but may be making our site's performance worse. Why? Here's an example

Searching on "air conditioner repair" recently turned up our website as a "starred" or recognized as authoritative information source on the topic. BUT the link that Google provided was NOT to our Air Conditioning diagnosis and repair information but rather to our website's main home page.

The result is that the searcher using Google clicks on the starred link but is taken to the wrong place at our website. And bounces fast.

Perhaps a closer look at fine-tuning the new starred link idea might be useful,
But rather than depend on starring, ultimately, we need to be sure to put the top quality content at the top of search results.

It looks to us as if the new search algorithm is

- in a wide range of more specialized topics, hurting a lot of good content
- pushing lower quality content more generic or content farm writers higher in search results than it was before.

at least that's been our experience.

As a writer/researcher committed to working with Google and the "do no harm" approach to business, we're pretty worried.

Daniel Friedman
editor/publisher  InspectAPedia.com