Google Authorship is the royal road to more trustworthy Web content, right? The key for publishers to build a sound online reputation, the path to meaningful search engine results, yes? It was certainly billed as all of these things. But now it’s been euthanised.

We’re all familiar with Google’s ever developing ways of searching for and demoting low quality sites – anyone involved in SEO will be aware of the tricks and twists of the Panda, Penguin and Payday algorithms and the effects their updates can have on a site’s position in search results.

With all of the recent updates to the Google search algorithms (Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird), a toll is being taken on social sharing and content.

Now that the dust from Google’s new algorithm changes is clearing, webmasters have been looking at the outcomes of these changes. And unfortunately for small to medium sized businesses, it looks as if the task of keeping at the top end of Google’s search result pages will be harder still.

Webmasters may see a change in web rankings from this week, as Google has implemented an, as yet, unnamed algorithm change. This change is intended to provide more accurate and relevant local search results, and is tied closely to traditional web search ranking signals, including hundreds of signals Google use in web search along with search features such as Knowledge Graph, spelling correction, synonyms and more.

For many small to medium sized businesses, creating a strong online presence is a challenge, and keeping a site high in the search results rankings can be a constant struggle.

Have you ever wondered what makes people click on certain words in search ads? Is there a magical formula that makes one site shoot to the top of the search rankings while other languish several pages below?

It looks like Matt Cutts has discovered how much fun it is to use a green screen. In his latest webmaster video, Google’s head of spam first appears as a disembodied head, then uses his hands to cover his face, merging in and out of visibility. His point? To let businesses know that you need a good website with great content if you want to be visible on the web.

Matt Cutts has been back online with more handy information for webmasters who are determined to grow their site and gain the biggest impact they can through their PageRank.

Many brands have used Facebook as a fairly successful marketing platform without resorting to buying ads; however, algorithm changes have caused brands to notice decreased visibility in recent months, with reports of rates as low as 1-2%. However, small brands and businesses shouldn’t despair, they just need to adapt and re-evaluate their marketing strategies.