This is a serious question, are websites such as Youtube, Android Store etc, exempt from Algo updates?
One of my websites, an app store, very similar to Google's Android Marketplace, has recently experienced a 15% loss of traffic from Google. Initially I figured it was related to a WMT message on the same day as the traffic drop (20th January), mentioning the need to upgrade my Wordpress because it maybe vulnerable.
However, since reading Tedsters post, regarding Matt's announcement of the above the fold update, I looked at where the drop in traffic was coming from. It's almost entirely from my stores download pages.
What's unique about the download pages, is the large banner at the top of each of the pages. The download pages are very similar in setup, to the Android marketplace, which also feature a large banner at the top.
This banner pushes the rest of the content down, quite considerably. But from a visitors perspective, they see exactly what they want to see, right there, above the fold.
I've lost heaven knows how many number 1 ranks for these download pages over the weekend and I've also lost 15% of my traffic. I can only assume at this point, the drop in traffic is a result of the lost rankings.
The pages on my store, without the banner, i.e gallery browsing pages haven't been hurt.
I follow Google's Android store and their rankings and I cannot see any drops in their rankings. Google's download page banners, are actually taller than mine, and take up a greater equity of the page.
If this was purely algorithmic and their own pages were under the same scrutiny as our own, then why haven't their stores download pages been hit?
