Google Trying To Kill Content Farms (GOOG, DMD)

Google

is trying to

which have been cluttering search queries for years. Google announced last yesterday on the

that it would change its search algorithm to improve the rankings of high-quality sites, while pushing down low-quality sites. The change will affect 11.8% of all search queries. The company said, "Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what's going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on." Many have complained about the visibility of companies like Demand Media Inc

, with its site like eHow and Livestrong.com. Shares of Google are up $5.19 to $614.01, a gain of 0.85%, while shares of Demand Media are off 78 cents or 3.5% to $21.82.