May 2008 Google SERP Changes

[Hissingsid]

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annej - I am very suspicious they do some link buying and wonder if Google is playing around with some algos they think might catch that.

I'm seeing similar signs this morning but I think that this is in reaction to the effect Internetheaven reported above. ie a devaluation in internal links caused an overvaluation in low value external links. I've seen a few sites rise to the very top of Serps that seem to have done it through link buying and link exchanging with off topic and/or poor geo location sites. Those now seem to be dropping.

Also one site that, out of the blue, got sitelinks for a very competitive 2 word term where there is no way it should be top of serps never mind be given sitelinks for that term. I'm pretty sure that this was an indication that external outgoing links, with the right anchor text, was given an undue boost. Today they have lost sitelinks. Lets hope they don't get them back!

What I'm seeing this morning looks like they are either tweaking down the weight of external outgoing links and incoming links or turning internal link anchor weight back up a tad.

Cheers

Sid

[edited by: tedster at 3:16 pm (utc) on May 1, 2008]

[steroidsro]

My site is back after 1 week of inactivity, so i knew i wasn`t penalized or banned , there was a problem from google or maybe they experimented new ranking algorithms

[pagerank10couk]

Im just going on our statcounter stats, then checking solid keywords I know we have always ranked high for via google.co.uk & .com which are no longer there.

The site was probably one of the highest ranking sites in the uk for most keyword terms, today it certainly isn't.

Yesterday was our busiest day ever, today is our worst.

Lee

[Tabby]

Up to 30th April our site was on the first page of Google, in some cases number 1, for many of our keywords, in both Google UK and Google.com. On 1st May it entirely disappeared for almost all of our keywords.

Today the site is back in its pre 1st May positions, for both Google UK and Google.com !

[c41lum]

Hi all,

I agree with Tabby looks like G have rolled back thier changes to pre 1st May. I m not holding my breath though that these results will stick.

[tedster]

Are you checking DCs by proxy or are you going to google.com. I suspect that some of the reports of big changes that we are seeing are geo filter changes

I agree - it would help this thread very much if people add the country from which they are doing their searching.

Google's geo-filtering had some significant problems recently, and there are reasons to hope those are what is being addressed.

[Guido]

when I check rankings in other countries I use proxies.
My site Hosted in Italy) ranks top three for all my main keywords here in Italy but I target international, the site is in english only and I do get get a single visitor from Italy...

[venti]

We were experiencing what seemed to be geo issues in Google since last Tuesday. Today it seems to have "corrected" itself for the most part as traffic looks like it did before this.

[steveb]

Synonyms seem to have really started to run amuck.

Searching for names has become far harder, especially if you are looking for a rare variant where there is a more common one.

I secrhed for a name where eventually I filtered the results to get only the person I wanted (using two "-" restictors which normal people will never do) to find the 14 results for this person. Google originally returned thousands of results, including people with similar first and last names.

Once again Google goes from something sensible ("Did you mean...") and instead ineptly adds results it KNOWS are not a reply to the query that was typed.

[affiliation]

For my main keyword which I compete for in the UK, looks as if it may be back on the rolercoaster this week,

Mon. began day @ #2 droped to #10 then around 10am back to #2
Tue down 1 to #3
Wed still dropping #5
Thur slipping #8

Interesting to note that the keyword in question gets up to 1000 searches daily. Other pages on this site with less competing keywords seems to remain unaffected and in some cases have actually increased.

During all this month my total searches from Google have remained fairly stable, running between 70% & 80% from Google.

I have never been able to recapture my #1 position from this saga began. The #1 site now has remained in a stable position but it is the others below which have been been rotating

[MadeWillis]

One of my biggest keywords now has site links in Google. I've never seen site links on a keyword this general and the what's even worse it's a link spammer! I guess they finally hit that threshold of enough irrelevant paid links, with keyword in anchor text, to gain the links.

[Tabby]

Well it was nice while it lasted - 2 days !

As of this morning our site has largely disappeared again from Google uk and .com - back to 27th May positions. Very strange as none of our main competitors seem to be touched at all by these swings. Almost seems personal, but can't work out why.

[c41lum]

Hi all,

I'm seeing the extact same as what Tabby is seeing. 2 days back in then bang! straght back down.

Scrapper Search Engine sites are now above me for my own unique content. CRAZY.

[Hissingsid]

Hi Callum,

How does google.co.uk compare with google.com and using a proxy like Google Watch Tool?

I suspect that the .co.uk geo filter may be having a bigger effect than changes at the data centres.

Cheers

Sid

[Figureitout]

Hello All,

I am seeing very weird keyword ranking fluctuations for several websites. Certain keywords are jumping from #1 all the way to #15 and have just been constantly fluctuating between in different positions. However I have some sites that are not moving at all. This is obviously some sort of update can someone give me some ideas of when this will settle.

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[edited by: tedster at 12:22 am (utc) on June 5, 2008]