It’s clear from all the changes that Google has made this year that the tricks that companies have been using to improve their search engine ranking are becoming less effective.

The first Panda Update in  February resulted in a change affecting about 12% of all queries.  This was mostly done by eliminating link farms from the search ranking algorithm.

Google has continued its effort to reduce the effectiveness of SEO tricks in a number of follow-on updates.

• Panda Update 1.0: Feb. 24, 2011
• Panda Update 2.0: April 11, 2011
• Panda Update 2.1: May 10, 2011
• Panda Update 2.2: June 16, 2011
• Panda Update 2.3: July 23, 2011
• Panda Update 2.4: August 12, 2011
• Panda Update 2.5: Sept 28, 2011

Now with the Panda updates are combined with the Freshness update – that resulted in a 35% change in the results of all queries – it is clear that Google has been effective in addressing many of the tricks that SEO companies were using to improve their clients Search Engine Ranking.

The bottom line of all these changes is that content that interacts with your customer, such as blogs, Social Media and the freshness of your site  is now more important in reaching your potential customers.