Google Updates and SERP Changes - Oct 2011

[Dave_Hybrid]

< continued from [webmasterworld.com...] >

I just found this little nugget whilst search for something completely unrelated.

#2 Post from Google employee.

[google.com...]

That's pretty clear admission they are hitting sites they don't mean to imo.

[edited by: tedster at 10:42 pm (utc) on Oct 2, 2011]

[tedster]

We've got a new thread start about Panda [webmasterworld.com] and the member who started it reported a return of his previously Pandalyzed site.

Let's take further Panda discussion to that thread so this thread can continue to track all manner of SERP changes - thanks.

[gehrlekrona]

Google serps are all f'd up as usual BUT what I just saw is something new for me.
My site showed up as #1 with 4 links below it, not the usual ones on one line but 2 lines on 2 rows indented.
THEN at the bottom of the page it says: Pages Similar to wwww.mysite.com and lists 4 sites, not the top 4 in the category but just 4 sites. Then below that you have the Related searches. Don't think I have seen that before.

Forgot to ad that all links under the main link in the Serps have previews...

[nadavs]

I just received a message back from my reconsideration request. The answer is the usual template "Some pages still violate our guidelines."

That's great to know, but which pages are they? I'll probably never know. There is no way I'm going through thousands of pages with their long guidelines.

The only thing left for me is the hope that the penalty was set because of the domain change, which brought over 10K links from the old domain (even though I set 301 redirects. Amazing algorithm...)

nadavs

[superclown2]

I just received a message back from my reconsideration request. The answer is the usual template "Some pages still violate our guidelines."

That's great to know, but which pages are they? I'll probably never know. There is no way I'm going through thousands of pages with their long guidelines.

The only thing left for me is the hope that the penalty was set because of the domain change, which brought over 10K links from the old domain (even though I set 301 redirects. Amazing algorithm...)

nadavs

Try getting your logs out and looking at the ones they looked at, and it might well give you a clue. They don't normally look at very many.

[gyppo]

There was a thread recently on HackerNews in which users were pointing out exact queries that Google returned badly - [news.ycombinator.com ]

Matt Cutts chimed in a few times and asked for examples of poor quality results. I don't know if he reads here but I normally see him respond to things about Google on there quite a bit.

Maybe it's because it never really gets into a discussion about the Algo there, therefore Matt finds it much easier to give a straight answer without dodging any "trade secrets"

Anyway, worth a read.

[nadavs]

@superclown2 - how do I find what they were looking at? How do I know what came from them?

nadavs

[superclown2]

how do I find what they were looking at? How do I know what came from them?

Look through your logs for a visit from Google's IP range, probably beginning 66.249. Check whether it's a live visit or a bot, their bots look for robots.txt and their browser is googlebot. Live visitors (at least the ones that I have tracked) browse with Macintoshes.

[tedster]

I just found this little nugget whilst search for something completely unrelated. #2 Post from Google employee: [google.com...]

That's pretty clear admission they are hitting sites they don't mean to imo.

That particular Googler (Pierre Far) has been posting here recently [webmasterworld.com], too - usually very helpful and clarifying contributions.

Yes, Google's algorithms have always made false positives (sometimes they also get called "edge cases, I think). I've always appreciated their willingness to publicly admit this, and to correct the problems they learn about - even for the "little guy."

[MrSavage]

I'm not sure if it's just me or if I've simply not had my eyes on this. I can honestly say, if I type in a phrase that is informational, like say, and object a place or a thing, I see wikipedia at the top or usually within the first three results. I'm talking I cannot right now do a search without it being at #1 or #2. I'm playing a game with this and it must be more now than ever before. Sure wikipedia has been around, but really I've never seen to this extent.

So the question is, since this is an SEO forum about solutions, how can we become more like wikipedia? Obviously that the key, the answer.

Play the game, think of something other than a product and I swear you won't shake wikipedia.

Funny point that I read about wikipedia is that in fact schools don't allow or recommend students use it for papers. It was a well know site writing the article but I don't have the link. It's funny to hear that yet see it so highly regarded as being the best source of information yet the school system don't recommend it. Interesting to say the least.

Editorial: The servers for wikipedia must be bursting right now. I would certainly love to see some stats on their numbers this year. Further, how much longer before they see ads? Maybe they can't but when you are talking about millions of dollars laying in waste, nobody can not take it. Something will change, it has to. It must be absolutely shocking their traffic volume.

[Whitey]

Matt Cutts - Weather report: expect some Panda-related flux in the next few weeks, but will have less impact than previous updates (~2%). [twitter.com...]
..... seeing set of 4 SERP results for popular phrases from single sites. Been going on for about a week now. Not sure if this part of the Panda flux or not , but thought I'd report it.

[Whitey]

those results just merged into one ..... i guess that's the "flux"

[Robert Charlton]

Worth noting for now until I get a chance to expand my observations... I'm seeing some shifts in Place Page results in the main organic serps, new verticals being tested, as well as new combinations of interface features.

Important difference from what I've seen previously... on the results I'm seeing now, the Place Pages are being inserted as additions, and not reducing the number of organic results returned, so there are generally 10 organic results in addition to whatever local or Universal results are shown. Placement of Place Pages varies by location and circumstances.... sometimes all at the top, sometimes not.

[Whitey]

Google Flux - Back again , top 10 organic results comprising 3 websites all with similar content. One simply has a plural in it's URL to differentiate it.

[proboscis]

more like a cluster flux...

[System]

Moved posts about Google Webmaster Tools showing increase in number of backlinks reported. New thread here...

GWT showing many more backlinks. How to use the information?
[webmasterworld.com...]

10:21 am on Oct 9, 2011 - (PST -8)

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:30 pm (utc) on Oct 9, 2011]

[toonarmy]

dont know if this is old hat but for the 1st time i have just seen a message under the search results thats says "you have visited this page"

[mhansen]

Not sure if its related to the backlink reports in Google Webmaster Tools, (I don't use GWT's) but I am seeing quite a bit of fluctuation in the entire market of a group of sites we monitor today.

I also noticed a new "Related Searches" showing between the Top Adwords block, and organic results. (It has not been there in the past for these queries, maybe Goog just learning and showing based on demand?)

MH

[endomorph1]

Anyone know if something was rolled out over the weekend ?

Traffic of one of my business directories just hit rock bottom, 9k+ unique per day tos a couple of hundred

[falsepositive]

@endomorph1, Something may have happened this weekend because my pandalized site went up 10% again.

[Marketing Guy]

Seeing big indexed pages changes today. Had a client site (which was fubar before I took over last month) drop from 16k pages to 2.2k. They only have 1.8kish pages - their old CMS created 56k odd pages - I 404/301 them as appropriate and they've been dropping by about 1k per day until this morning when they jumped down to 2.2k.

A site I own was hacked a while back (I didn't notice - not really paying attention to it) - 22k pages of spam content uploaded taking the total indexed to over 50k. Deleted the spam folder on Friday and they're all out of the index today.

A third site is a WP blog which had loads of /tags indexed. I blocked them via robots.txt when Panda first hit earlier in the year (International roll out) - but they've stayed in the index until this morning.

Also seen a former client's site drop from 850k pages to 160k (IMO they should be around the 350k mark but the replaced me with a moron so /shrug). There was loads of thin content which looks like it has been blitzed.

Just speculating, but Bing have moved into the "we're only indexing good content - not every piece of content" approach to search. Maybe Google are following suit? Seems like a fairly significant clean up of junk URLs IMO.

[tigger]

just seen a big flip on the terms I monitor on G.co.uk

I'm seeing sites ranking that haven't been touched in years - one 4yrs another 6! both ranking for a competitive "single" word

Seems like the idea of updating a site to gain rankings no longer applies - build a site then forget about it

[Bewenched]

I just did a search for a particular product
manufacturer name and part number without quotes

the first three sties came up:
1)Facebook (with a spammy note page that linked to amazon)
2)sites.google.com (free webpage service page links to amazon)
3)sites.google.com (free webpage service page links to amazon)

Total spam pages ... why is google promoting these pages like this

[endomorph1]

I have had no issues with pages listed, I'm sitting at just under 910k.

But from what I have checked, many of my 1 - 5 spots are now bottom of page 5.

The site has nicely ticked over at around 9k uniques a day for the last 18 months.

[Robert Charlton]

dont know if this is old hat but for the 1st time i have just seen a message under the search results thats says "you have visited this page"

I've never seen this message, but Search History, which is on by default, would enable Google to return it.

If you're signed in to a Google account, you can turn Search History off by changing your search Options (accessed by the gear icon in the upper right of the serps page). Or, you can search not signed in and flush your browser cookies regularly.

I assume, if you do either of these, that the message would disappear.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Hi Digi,

I reached out to a team internally and they identified an algorithm that is inadvertently negatively impacting your site and causing the traffic drop. They're working on a fix which hopefully will be deployed soon.

Hope this helps,
Pierre (Google Employee)

Hopefully I'm in the same boat, 7+ years and never an issue until late Sept 2011. It's disconcerting that Google insists on making 500+ changes a year since this type of thing is virtually guaranteed given enough changes.

[nadavs]

Sgt_Kickaxe - when was your traffic drop? I also had a drop in September, and I don't know if it's because the domain change or any other Google weirdness.

nadavs

[walkman]

something has changed internationally. I have some one page sites ('coming soon' but with relevant links and info) for a few killer names in a foreign langauge and traffic increased drastically.

[CainIV]

I am seeing what Robert is seeing in terms of Google places (7 pack + 10)

Interestingly enough, I too am seeing a move within the last 48 hours of older websites with very little recent work making a comeback. difficult to ascertain what specifically is causing those positive movements.

[Whitey]

very little recent work making a comeback. difficult to ascertain what specifically is causing those positive movements

I've seen the same, but perhaps over the past 2-3 months. Fairly bland/flat old sites with unique content. Nothing I could call quality sites.