17 replies to this topic

[anne999]

Is there a post summarizing the impact of Google's most recent algorithm update? If not, I would appreciate if someone could summarize items to keep in mind as a result of the update. .

Thanks,
Anne

[Randy]

There's been a major update recently?

I hadn't even noticed anything with any of my sites. Just the same old normal movement for months on end. So if there was something major it's news to me!

[Jill]

I don't think so, Randy. Just the usual every day update that they do.

[Andy_Seo]

Hi Anne,

Are you focusing on UK hosted websites in Google UK? If so there has been enormous fluctuations over the past month with US sites obtaining more prominence within Google UK. Have a read on here:

http://www.internetb...p-for-uk-serps/

What is more worrying is the following (if using Google Chrome) - why have they dropped the 'UK Tab' and replaced it with this link at the bottom?:



Anyone else witnessing this change in Google UK? Some people of cited June 4th as when this change happened - I noticed it on June 6th.

[mal4mac]

June was much better for me than May for UK pages.

[kithappens]

I can't say I've noticed any major changes really, but then I've been doing more local based SEO for the last couple of months so that's probably why. I'd certainly be interested to hear more feedback on this.

[Rajesh]

Yes some major changes are happened in the last week. We are targeting UK Visitors and we are shifted from first page to third pages in google.co.uk
It may Google are updated UK data center only. Many webmasters are giving comments that results are updated between first page to third page.


Thanks

[Michael Martinez]

Google may have exported its most recent U.S. algorithmic/filtering changes to the U.K. search side. There were several significant changes in behavior in late May and early June on the U.S. search side.

[Andy_Seo]

Google may have exported its most recent U.S. algorithmic/filtering changes to the U.K. search side. There were several significant changes in behavior in late May and early June on the U.S. search side.

How have results been recently Michael? They are fluctuating vastly for a number of sectors I am watching - whilst returning some rubbish, before dropping those sites completely.

[anne999]

Ok thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm not in the UK. I'm in Canada. The primary reason for my question is that I recently saw a significant drop in my # of inbound links in Google Webmaster Tools. My rank hasn't changed and my PR increased. Sounds like nothing significant has really changed.

Anne

[MaKa]

This seems the most relevant thread for my query as lately Google seems to show (in my opinion) more irrelevant results. I've noticed this with queries consisting of multiple keywords. Some of the results returned don't include all keywords. I have to specifically add + signs to my query to make sure all keywords are included. Has anyone else noticed the same and does anyone else think this is a bad thing? I've even go as far as to try different search engines for some of my queries... - which I hardly ever do if I'm trying to find something.

[Jill]

The primary reason for my question is that I recently saw a significant drop in my # of inbound links in Google Webmaster Tools.

They probably just changed the way they report stuff. I find Webmaster Tools info to be kinda dodgy for the most part.

[Randy]

As Jill said, Webmaster Tools has recently gone through some changes. Some of them are quite significant from the way it worked before. Though I don't normally put much stock in the details WMT attempts to give you, I'd give those details even less thought right now. It'll probably take them a bit to sort out the changes.

[anne999]

Thanks for the feedback Jill and Randy. Much appreciated.

Anne

[Michael Martinez]

WHAT FOLLOWS IS HIGHLY SPECULATIVE

How have results been recently Michael? They are fluctuating vastly for a number of sectors I am watching - whilst returning some rubbish, before dropping those sites completely.

It's a bit off topic, as I think the original issue has been resolved (Webmaster Tools was recently updated and many people are reporting changes in data), but I think all the fluctuation I have seen recently is due to the algorithmic changes Google made in May. I feel they implemented a new link filtering technique, but I cannot really put my finger on anything.

Over the past 6 weeks a lot of people have complained about issues that all seem to be related to their backlink profiles in some way, but there is no consistent pattern of complaints. If there is a common factor (and there does not have to be), then I think it may be that Google is doing a better job at preventing questionable links from passing value.

I have no way of supporting that feeling at this time. There is just nothing that really helps to confirm it.

Some of the sites I manage have been slow to repopulate the Google cache with changes that have been rolled out over the past few months. Usually if a site's cache update frequency slows down it's not a big deal. But when several sites slow down, it starts to look like a pattern. Those sites had inbound links from a lot of different sources.

So it looks like a Cascade Effect to me. We saw something similar about 3 years ago after the Bigdaddy Update of December 2005 - March 2006. It took several months for the effect to resolve itself as Google recrawled the Web. People were scratching their heads about random losses of Toolbar PR, search rankings, referral traffic, search index visibility, etc. What I see being reported in numerous forums and blogs almost (but not exactly) matches that pattern.

A Cascade Effect works this way:

A search engine changes the way it evaluates links and then recrawls the Web.

The recrawl will begin with the most important sites -- the so-called "seed sets" that we're pretty sure all search engines use to launch their crawls. Most of the links on these sites will pass the new algorithmic review and very few sites will suffer any degradation in search results visibility, etc.

The links gathered from the seed set sites will then be crawled. Since these second tier sites are less trusted than the seed set sites there is a small statistical probability that the second tier will contain more questionable links than the seed set. Now, that doesn't mean these links are bad, sneaky, spammy, etc. It's just that the new link valuation rules will find more exceptions for whatever reasons. Hence, a small but slightly larger number of sites will suffer as a result.

Now you get into the third round of crawling (during which the seed set is crawled again, new links culled, and the second tier crawl is scheduled for a second pass). At this point any sites that lost value after the first crawl may have their crawl priorities adjusted, or they may lose trust, or something prevents them from helping their link destinations as much as they once did. So this third round of crawling produces a larger number of weakened sites than the second round of crawling did.

The process goes on and on. There may be other ways that the search engine devalues sites -- perhaps some sites further down in the hierarchy are put on a sort of temporary probation, where they are automatically stripped of a certain amount of value until they earn it back through their links.

What This Means:
My point despite all the speculation here is that it takes months for a Cascade Effect to resolve itself. You see a slow but steady trickle of reports across the SEO Web about lost rankings, lost indexing, lost Toolbar PR, etc. The trickle may pick up some volume but it never really reaches a crescendo like you would see after a huge, massive algorithmic update where a favored technique is suddenly turned over.

If my guesses are close to the truth of the matter, we may continue to see people complaining about lost value through the end of August. That's just a guess based on past experience. I've only been sure of two Cascade Events in the past and both were prolonged events.

It could also be that Google is micromanaging the Cascade Event to try to minimize the impact it has on the sites in its index. If that is what they are doing.