Now Google wants high-quality, in-depth, newsworthy content. No change then.

Now Google wants high-quality, in-depth, newsworthy content. No change then.

We fear that which we don’t understand, and that gives us good reason to fear Google. None of us grasps how this algorithmic behemoth works and this is the very basis for its dominance. Talk this week has been of Google’s previous aversion to press release material being reversed, or at least halted.
The tale goes something like this. The comms world is all about search. In the past, landing your story in a mass circulation title – typically the holy grail of the PR – would help the story on search. Google stopped all that, its Panda 4.0 algorithm identifying pick-up of press releases and devaluing this content. Now a new algorithm means press release and search can feed off each other again, but only if it uses its own channels, and only if the content is – get this – high-quality, in-depth and newsworthy.

So if you’ve been netting coverage in high circulation media with material that is low-quality, shallow and unnewsworthy, – which I can’t imagine – you’re in trouble. If, like most of us, you haven’t, this new world shouldn’t fill you with terror. Rest easy: what’s happening here is that Google is clamping down on brands spamming us with endless mindless dross masquerading as news. That apart, as ever with Google, we’re really none the wiser.
PS Whatever others will have you believe, communications is NOT all about search. By definition, search is what the market actively asks for: media relations is mostly about disseminating messages that are relevant and interesting, but haven’t been requested. That’s why they’re called news.

http://www.business2community.com/public-relations/dont-call-comeback-google-just-made-press-releases-valuable-01192309