On February 4^th, Google implemented a new algorithm that has had a major effect on the optimization ranking of with a large number of websites. The Google update known as Panda/Farmer is primarily aimed at content farms but many other sites are affected as well. If you are building a new site, you would be well served to pay attention to how your content is presented and have a good road map from the very beginning.

Now, two months after that release, some SEO and SEM companies are busy learning how to work around the system. To be sure, the legitimate firms are encouraging their customers how to work with the system to their benefit. However, while doing some research for this article I found a number of companies that are promoting their “workarounds” touting themselves as SEO experts. This practice is shady at best.

The purpose of the change is to weed out shabby content that is often misleading and does not benefit the end users searching for relevant information on specific topics. The update is really a quest for quality of content.

There is plenty of data that is coming out regarding which sites have been most affected. At Sistrix, the team has been crunching numbers. Sistrix created a dataset of one million keywords that compared the day before and day after the release, the results are astounding. The top 25 losers had a site percentage loss ranging from 66% up to 94%.

The changes demand that every online business re-examine their content and retailers should pay particular attention. Many e-commerce sites, that have paid thousands of dollars for SEO work, have seen their visibility diminish. Even if you don’t sell products online, it’s becoming increasingly important to understand how your content will affect your rankings. On the top of the list are; use of social media outlets, reviews that are generated by site visitors/customers, and video.

In the webmaster guidelines of Google’s website, there are a number of articles that discuss how to improve your rankings. These pages http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35264 and http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 can be helpful.

If you are searching the web to find articles relating to SEO, be aware that articles dated before January 30, 2011 are very likely to contain outdated information.