“Google Dance” was coined some time back when Google rolled out many search engine algorithm changes in quick succession. These monthly changes caused the rankings of websites to fluctuate drastically. Just when SEO experts thought that the Google Dance had disappeared, it is back again.
In their bid to change the way websites are ranked, the search engine giant launched the Panda algorithm last year to lower the ranks for low quality websites. This was followed by the launch of Penguin this year to fight black hat SEO techniques. The search engine has now launched another minor algorithm change aimed at reducing the rank of exact match domains.
In September, 2012, Matt Cutts – the head of the Google team that fights web spam – announced via Twitter that the company will be launching a small algorithm change that ensures that the search engine ranks of low quality exact-match domains are reduced. According to him, this algorithm change is not related to Panda or Penguin algorithms. Exact match domains are those domains whose names are an exact match with the search keyword. For example, a website that sells furniture and is named furniture.com has an exact match domain name.
Most often, this is unintentional. This has caused some worry among legitimate website owners. Matt Cutts has assured that these changes will affect less that 1% of all Google queries typed in US English. Also, instead of targeting all exact-match domains, this algorithm change will penalize low quality websites using exact-match domain names to increase web rankings. Most SEO writers have welcomed this new change in ranking algorithms with enthusiasm as the focus now shifts to creating quality web content.