Update to the Jagger Update!
We are seeing Jagger in the third phase of deployment in a few datacenters. One of the sites we are monitoring is telling a few things that characterize the Jagger update:-Content: it seems that content is what Google is emphasizing more than ever. Lots of well writen, informative pages.
-Reciprocal links are losing weight in a dramatic fashion: this particular site has few reciprocal links, some important uni-directional ones. Still, the Jagger update recognizes the content and is rewarding the site in the ranks. Are reciprocal links dead? I would not go that far. It looks like topic related exchanges still have some importance. On the other hand, free-for-all exchanges such as an online immigration law site swapping with a diamond store will probably be a waste of time. And possibly in the future this technique could even have a negative effect on ranks.
-Clean code: this is of course an important factor that has always weighed on results. It looks like W3C compliance is playing a bigger role.
What does this mean for search engine optimization? Simply put, SEO firms will either need to have good content writers on staff who can look at a site and write pertinent pages or have the site owners create them. With the latter, these pages will have to be optimized to make sure they are keyword rich.
We are sure there are going to be some automated page generating software companies who will emphasize the increasing importance of having many pages created on the fly to increase ranking. From what we can see, Google is capable of reading and understanding content and we still strongly feel they are implementing ontological text recognition. Write real content and you will see the results. Take shortcuts and things could get bad really fast.
