On October 14th or 15th (depending on where you live) there was a pretty major Google algorithm update. Matt Cutts said in a tweet that it would only effect about 2% of websites, but from what I am reading it has had a much broader effect than just 2%.
Having had some of my websites effected as well, I have spent the last 5 days pouring over forums, trying to figure out what this update is actually doing. According to Cutts, it could take a few weeks to settle, so many site owners are hoping their sites bounce back from the abyss into which they were dropped when this update hit.
All evidence is pointing to a major update. This is no small change here, so either Google underestimated how many sites this would effect or just misled us. But one thing is for sure, if the giant search engine wanted to cause chaos in the SEO sphere, it has brilliantly succeeded.
So what sites were effected?
Normally, in order to figure out what the update did, we have to look at what sites were effected and compare the attributes of those sites to see what they had in common. But in this case the results are all across the board. There are old sites and new sites that were effected. Even authority websites that offer outstanding content have been hit.
But a few major websites have benefited from all the chaos. Wikipedia, Amazon, and eBay have all been seen hovering around the top of Google for certain keywords. This is bad news for marketers and maybe even for searchers if Google is just going to push the big name websites higher and let those “mom and pop” websites plummet, but again, this could just be a temporary adjustment in the algorithm. (and yes, typing the word “algorithm” does make you feel smarter. Just try it sometime.)
Let’s get some crazy myths out of the way
The first thing site owners do when there is an update is jump to conclusions without any facts to support them. I have heard people saying this update means backlinks no longer matter, Google is penalizing blog networks now, and even people saying that this update had something to do with Google’s +1 project. None of those things are true, however. Correlation does NOT equal causation, but when the results for different websites are so varied can you really blame the “conclusion jumper”?
Does this mean that Google is focusing more on quality content?
I would like to say yes, as I concentrate on creating quality content on all of my sites, but so far we are seeing some pretty crummy sites moving up in the rankings. There are even reports of websites with 404 errors and parked pages ranking #1 above other websites with very good quality content.
But I have a theory that Google is trying to rank webpages based on the bounce rate more and more. I can’t prove this but I think this is why we are seeing websites with such different link portfolios and ages moving in such different directions. I have actually been saying this for a while, as it only makes sense as the only true way to determine if a visitor got what they wanted from a webpage or not.
This also may answer why some newer websites were not effected or even went UP in the rankings, because Google does not yet have enough information on these sites to see if the bounce rate is too high or low compared to competing sites.
So how did YOUR websites fare? I would love to hear from you.
I know this update is not done, but it’s always good to look at what other sites are doing that survived this update to see what Google is looking for.
Of course, there is always the possibility that Google just randomly changed things around to make SEOs and marketers scratch their heads and just give up and resign to pay for Adwords after all.
I have 2 classic car websites, one has gone up slightly the other has died overnight.
If the new scheme is based on bounce rate I think this is stupid, my sites have very good original content but because of this have a high bounce rate. If you have pages with good content and some one searches and finds what they are looking for on that page and leaves you have 100% bounce rate even though you have a good site and the person got what they were looking for, bounce rate is not a good indication of quality.
Great post- appreciate your humour too!
Yes the Drop in google Rank was huge in some websites.
From what we can tell this “minor” update is based on the devaluation of Web2.0 and article backlinks OR on increasing the value of backlinks from blogs. This is purely speculative at this stage as it is way too early to make a concrete assumption.
However, some sites have come from nowhere in the SERPs to position 1 that have less that 300 backlinks – all of which come from spammy blog comments. Other sites have been thrown to the top with almost no backlinks at all but that do have a ton of internal links from unrelated pages. For example one site has NO backlinks listed in yahoo explorer or Google but has 5,883 internal pages all linking to the page now ranking number 1.
We have seen this across a variety of search phrases.
The SERPs were also dancing like crazy for about a week across a wide range of keywords recently as though Google was flitting between a new index and an old one or as though it was turning off and on its new indicators.
Although this algo update has been coined as “minor” by Google it is pretty major. Maybe Google thinks its minor because most sites that have been negatively impacted and lost ranking have only lost 1 place in the SERPs but for sites that have been at the top grabbing 40% of the search volume now only getting 11% for position 2 this is far from a minor update!
From what we can tell this update is throwing sites to the top rather than throwing sites down in the SERPs. We have seen this happen before and last a few weeks before things settle down. Usually the sites thrown to the top are dubious to say the least and are usually devoid of any real content and/or not really related (or are loosely related) to the search phrase they are ranking for.
There are a few theories as to why this happens but we usually find things settle back to some type of normality within 2 – 3 weeks…so here’s hoping.
Stephen, I should have mentioned that included with the bounce rate factor would be the length of the visit of the user. You are absolutely right that great content would not require someone to click to another page, but this is really keyword by keyword. When I come to a wikipedia page I never click on another link, but these are for keywords that are informative in nature. And google uses different algorithms for different “types” of keywords in my opinion.
Hi CashCoach. One of my sites is a voucher site. This has been affected this time around and dropped considerably on some terms but marginally on others. It has, however, knocked be off page 1 across the board and its seriously affected my traffic as a result.
I don’t agree with you that the length of visit should be included with bounce rate as you suggest. The bounce factor can be the voucher site’s friend. For instance, if someone finds the exact code they’re looking for, then they’ll click away from the entire site quite happily. Therefore, if the visit length is also factored in, I lose even more.
I’m crossing all my fingers and toes this ‘sorts itself out soon’ as with Christmas coming I’m in for a rocky ride otherwise!
Incidently, my other site, a blog based one has rocketed lately…..?!
My music blog, GarageSpin.com, took a 50% drop on October 14th. I don’t quite understand why, as it’s a fully legitimate music blog. I’m not doing anything shady, sketchy, or much of anything to drive revenue, really. That said, I haven’t been posting very often in 2011. Perhaps frequency of refresh content played a part?
If anyone has any ideas on what I may be doing “wrong”, please share. I’m a bit bummed.
That’s a good point Loren, but I think Google also factors in if that same visitor clicks the back button and then continues to search other sites under that same keyword. This would be very frustrating for webowners as we don’t see this information, but it’s a possibility. It’s all really conjecture at this point really. But the more we all express what happened to our sites the more we can understand what the big G is really doing. I have a feeling more affiliate sites were effected by this update as well.
If this update was aimed at altering bounce rates, G did a lousy job. At the time you wrote this post (five days after the update) my bounce rates were soaring compared to the time preceding the update. On my sites which have been affected, they have since evened out to almost the exact same levels as before the update, yet on lower overall traffic.
I have noticed the bump you mentioned that sites like Amazon and eBay have gotten from this, though. I notice it more as a web searcher, than as an affiliate marketer, and find it very annoying. I already know Amazon and eBay carry everything in creation. I want options!
That said, my best guess is that these sites are winning because of branding. I say this because of the data I’ve analyzed from my own sites which took hits – all EMDs, all targeting multiple related keywords beyond their EMD. And when they get beaten out for their related keywords, it’s almost invariably by a branded site.
Another scary thought: what if it’s a shift in how links are counted? Think of how many affiliate marketers link to these sites. If G has decided to start counting affiliate links as transferring serious link juice, then no mom & pop sites will ever have a chance of beating out the heavyweights. I sure hope that’s not what has happened. Though my search results over the past two weeks sure make it look that way.
One of the sites I run got killed and google even took out my site for my top keyword. Doesn’t make much sense to me. Most of the sites that I see ranking for comparable keywords are running much less quality sites that are made for adsense type of sites that have a low amount of links. Have to keep searching for answers.