Skip to main content

Google Update Early in This Month

So after reporting a Google update on May 1st, then waiting and watching the community over the weekend to say - oh boy, there was a Google update rolling out over Friday through the weekend - we then had Google tell us there was no update. I used a Panda bear giving an evil stare because most of us knew something changed.
And Google, after a bunch of arm twisting, finally gave me/us confirmation, which I posted on Search Engine Land.
Google told us this was not an update for web spam, but a normal Google core search quality update. That is what I said earlier but I didn't have it on record. I assumed it wasn't related to Panda, Penguin or core spam, but rather a normal Google search core algorithm update and it was.
I am not sure exactly why Google wouldn't confirm it back then but now they are and hopefully in the future they will as well. So the 10% of you that call me out as a traffic whore (or whatever you call me) for being the first to report on any possible update - I am sorry.
If you saw a change in traffic starting around May 1st, you are 100% not going crazy, Google made an update that was more noticeable than previous core search updates.
John Mueller actually addressed this in a Google+ Hangout yesterday after Google sent out official confirmation.
Essentially this is something where we are not, I don’t know, calling this anything specific. This is essentially just a normal algorithm update that we make all the time. And sometimes that is something that affects more sites and sometimes that is something that affects fewer sites.
But essentially, we are working on trying to increase the relevance and the quality of the search results. And that is essentially just a normal update that was happening there. Nothing really specific.
So if you are seeing changes within your sites traffic, impressions that are coming from search, I think that is something where you can work on your web site in general and for most cases it is not something where there is any technical issue that you need to focus on and you would see that in Webmaster Tools obviously. But it is not the case where there is, oh this one line of HTML that you need to swap out these two letters and suddenly you will rank much higher again.
We do these algorithmic updates all the time and for some times it goes up and for other sites it goes down. Our general goal is to make sure that the quality of the search results are really as high as possible.
So if you’d like to us to be more visible about these updates, focusing on your site and making it the best it can possibly be, is always a good strategy.
I realize that is not an easy answer...
Labels:
Location: United States

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is Google Testing The Penguin 4.0 Algorithm?

  I think we are on the verge of seeing Penguin 4.0 launch soon at Google - I think we are just about there. I know, I know, it's been a while. I have seen some chatter in the industry, on and off chatter, over the past 12 hours or so, that people are noticing some drastic changes with the Google search rankings on and off. It can be nothing, it can be a blip, it can be a different algorithm or it can be people making stuff up - but it also can be Google testing Penguin 4.0 to a limited set of searchers. The folks at WebmasterWorld over the past 12 hours or so have been asking about it: JS Harris, a senior Webmaster World member said: I have a small list of 10 distinct keywords for my site that I check when I wonder if a major update has occurred. The bottom few results on page one generally come and go but the top spots stay immortal. They stay there, that is, until there is a major update. I'm only ever mildly surprised when I see a would be con...
Post a Comment
Read more

Google Earnings Report Shows New AdWords Ad Format Increased Click Through Rates

Google announced their Q2 earnings last night and beat estimates, although some are worried about mobile ads being an issue and Nikesh Arora leaving the company. But the earnings report showed a couple things advertisers here would be interested in, at least two things: (1) The new ad format used for AdWords ads in the search results, that blend in better, had a nice increase in click through rates and that lead to more money for Google despite lower CPC prices. Here are before and after on the ad formats: Old ad format: New ad format: (2) Google broke down where the paid clicks came from in more detail for the first time: Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our Network members, increased approximately 25% over the second quarter of 2013 and increased approximately 2% over the first quarter of 2014. Sites paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads we serve on Google owned and operated ...
Post a Comment
Read more

eBay Admits Google Penalty Had A "Dramatic Impact" On Earnings

Back in May we reported that eBay had some sort of penalty that hit their Google search visibility by about 50%. That is major but now we somewhat know how major. Danny Sullivan reports on Search Engine Land that it may have costed them $200 million. On the eBay earnings call yesterday, eBay’s chief financial officer Bob Swan said : Now, let’s turn to the Marketplaces business. Marketplaces delivered $2.2 billion in revenue, which grew 6%, GMV grew 8%, and operating margin declined 340 basis points. It was a challenging quarter. As John indicated, we got off to a good start, but we had significant obstacles late May.The combination of the cyberattack and the Google SEO had an immediate and dramatic impact on GMV growth. June GMV growth was 7% driven by slower active buyer growth and lower conversion. In light of these events, we have made significant investments to get eBay users reengaged, including couponing, seller incentives and increased marketing spend... ...
Post a Comment
Read more