Google search changes again. There are Panda changes and Penguin changes, now Hummingbird changes, and Google has removed keywords from our Analytics, and we have to figure out what to do with Google+ and Google Local Business listings aka Google+ Local (or is it Google+ Local Business Pages this week?). What is an innkeeper to do? How can you keep up with all the changes, in order to make sure your business is successful?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or so it is said. Google itself says it changes its search algorithm over 300 times per year (almost daily!). However, it seems beyond question that some changes require more attention for small business websites than others. When there are changes in Google search results that would penalize your website, for example, or when credit is given for particular formats or content, a change is surely warranted.

Yesterday (16 July 2012) Google’s Webmaster Central Blog published a post explaining “semantics”(more about that in a moment) of web pages, urging sites to use semantic markup (specific types of HTML), and several “Do’s and Don’ts”. Could this be a signal of an upcoming algorithm change? A Bit of Background This will be the geeky part, but a bit of background will help understand what may turn out to be significant about the Google Webmaster Central post mentioned above.

What is Google Instant? Search results while you’re typing. Not the little drop-down thingie that anticipates what you’ll type, but actual results (complete with local map, for appropriate searches) that change as you type. See the screen shot below for an example. Notice that while the user has typed in “bed and” Google suggest has added “breakfast” and the search results are for the full term “bed and breakfast”. If you change the third word to bath, the results change.

Wouldn’t it be great if Google would tell you which changes will help with search results? Don’t you wish your site ranked better in the organic search engine results pages (SERPs)? Wouldn’t it be great if you could find out from Google (well, let’s not forget Bing, Yahoo! and the others, but after all, their share of the market is tiny compared to GOOG) whether or not certain changes will really make any difference?