Matt Cutts: Google multi-week rollout going on now

[SEOPanda]

Matt Cutts: [twitter.com...]

Multi-week rollout going on now, from next week all all the way to the week after July 4th.

Seeing a bunch of junk results... looks like many big keywords are returning results that aren't ideal.

Anyone seeing their rankings moving and being replaced by strange sites?
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:57 am (utc) on Jun 26, 2013]
[edit reason] added quote [/edit]

[ColourOfSpring]

Trouble is, many topics don't lend themselves to promotion, sharing, or discovery through social networking. When my electronic car key stops working and I need how-to information about reprogramming it, a Google search will be far quicker and more reliable than asking for advice on Facebook. If my son is planning a trip to Surinam and wonders what shots he needs, his friends and acquaintances on Twitter aren't likely to have the answer. If my cousin is suffering from a minor but embarrassing medical ailment and wants some background info before he sees the doctor, he's unlikely to broadcast his symptoms on Google+. In each case, a search engine is the user's preferred route to a site with the desired information.

EditorialGuy, exactly. Asking someone on FB/Twitter is time-consuming - you wait for an answer that may well be "I don't know". A search engine just tells you straight away. Sure you need to research further to make sure the "answer" is correct, but you have information in front of you in seconds. The problem with people promoting social networks as a means to driving business is that they assume all business models can benefit from social networks. In my opinion, that's simply inaccurate hype. And the problem is - there is so much noise on these social networks. People essentially just spamming their services because the medium isn't designed for "deep" content. Visit their website and you see it's neglected. It seems a lot of businesses are spreading themselves so thinly over these networks in a desperate attempt to gain business - putting them in the trap of simply looking spammy and devoid of substance.

[turbocharged]

Is there actually any way to give Google feedback or will they just ignore us and think we're a bunch of whingers?

It may be best to send Google feedback regarding the search query you are on. When searching in Google, use the "send feedback" link at the bottom of the page.

I'm not sure if any form of communication with Google actually works in the short term. A lot of webmasters are submitting feedback to Google any way they can, most of whom believe their sites should rank #1. And we all know not everyone can rank #1. :)

[besnette]

Another thing that I have seen, and I don't know if this is giving false signals to google as being a 'quality' site, but I will say "bounce rate manipulation' for lack of a better name.

I see so many sites at the top, especially on friday's brief, frightening update, where sites display information about a business, and a 'click here to see the phone number' - which takes you to a referral box instead, with a small link saying 'no thanks' to click out of the referral ad, finally getting to a another page that has the phone number - so basically 2,3, 4 clicks to get simple information..

So naturally, that results in a nice looking, low bounce rate, since the user is going around in circles to get basic information...

Almost across the board I saw this on Friday in the dominant sites... a lot of unnecessary clicks to get simple info...

Anyone else?

[Dymero]

Trouble is, many topics don't lend themselves to promotion, sharing, or discovery through social networking.

So go old school. Contact sites that you may think will benefit from information that your site has and tell them about it. I'm not sure if you're doing this on a client basis or not, but if you have the time, get involved with the community around your niche and, once a decently involved member, you can (probably) share your site.

This isn't "link building" so much as simple promotion. The webmaster of the site decides whether or not to add your site and what anchor text to use.

[ltifwwc]

In our vertical, for most important keywords, out of top 10 results about 7 (70%) have Google Adsense advertisement.. anyone else seeing that for their verticals?

[BillyS]

At this point in time, we're half way through this roll out and I'm not seeing any material difference in the SERPs. I was just looking at an article that used to rank well for its topic. I queried Google to see what they felt were the top articles. I wanted to see what I was missing because it was obviously something important.

I was shocked at how bad the results were for this phrase. I stopped after looking at the top five results because I felt ill. They were all big brand names. Two of them had content, but didn't even have a critical word for this phrase. The other two were merely directories of related articles. None of which covered the topic.

I guess I get it, Google hit the easy button. They've given up on figuring out which websites actually answer the query and took the safe path of sending users to big brands.

Is this a bit of sour grapes on my part, I'm sure that's part of it. We've gone from nearly a million page views a month back in 2011 to about 90,000 in June. We were slapped twice by "above the fold" and our articles start roughly 100 pixels from the top of a user's display. We were never hit by Penguin (we haven't exchanged a link in about 8 years), have links from the NYT, WSJ, NPR and the site's been featured on television twice (at least).

I see the Mozcast weather report, seems like the first round was aimed at EMD and PMD, but I'm not seeing anything really different this week. Anyone?

[EditorialGuy]

They've given up on figuring out which websites actually answer the query and took the safe path of sending users to big brands.

If anything, I've seen the opposite for some of the informational queries that I watch. The top results for one query are:

1) An About.com page that's mostly adequate, though some of the information is a few years out of date.

2) An EMD page that's completely inadequate.

3) An official page that probably should rank at the top of the SERP.

4) A four-year-old magazine article that hasn't been updated.

5) Another EMD page that's both inadequate and off-topic.

6) Our page (in-depth information and up to date, but not our most relevant page for the query).

7) A Wikipedia stub.

8) A page on the leading UGC megasite in our sector.

9) A blog post that's trying to sell something related to the topic.

10) An informational page on a local commercial site that's useful but not directly on-topic.

You'll note that the Wikipedia stub and UGC megasite page are more than halfway down the SERP. (The order of the results has shifted a bit in the last few days, but the EMD pages--which are junk at best--are still doing fine.)

[Bewenched]

Hopefully they are floating up the bad sites to scrape them off instead of rewarding the scrapers.

[LuckyLiz]

Right now the top three listings on Google for a search for "how to do keyword phrase" are three Wikihow pages.
1 - "How to (keyword phrase)
2 - "How to (keyword phrase) on a shoestring
3 - "How to use the Internet to (keyword phrase)

[BillyS]

They've given up on figuring out which websites actually answer the query and took the safe path of sending users to big brands.

If anything, I've seen the opposite for some of the informational queries that I watch. The top results for one query are:

1) An About.com page that's mostly adequate, though some of the information is a few years out of date.

2) An EMD page that's completely inadequate.

3) An official page that probably should rank at the top of the SERP.

4) A four-year-old magazine article that hasn't been updated.

I'm not sure I get the "just the opposite part." I would consider all four of these as likely big brands. I'm thinking at least 1 and possibly 4 are well branded websites.

[EditorialGuy]

#1 is a "big brand" (About.com).

#2 is an EMD site that I'd never heard of, and which apparently got lucky. (I don't get the impression that the owner was trying for a decent ranking.)

#3 isn't a "big brand," but is a local transit authrity.

#4 is a reasonably big brand.

But the biggest brands (Wikipedia and the UGC megasite) are down at positions 7 and 8. Not too many months ago, they probably would have been #1 and #2, not necessarily in that order. (Mind you, I'd argue that the Wikipedia stub shouldn't be on page 1 of the SERP, period, but Google seems to be extremely forgiving of big brands even if it doesn't always rank them at the top of the SERP.)

[johnhh]

but I'm not seeing anything really different this week

nor I, in fact I don't see anything different here in the UK since the start of this so called update. Is there an update actually going on ?

[Martin Ice Web]

@johnhh, then u be lucky.

In my niche brands dominate no matter if they are relevant or not. Sites with Amazon listing are on the top, ebay affiliates, empty pages. And it is changing from hour to hour to get more worse.
And since they changed the title colors in serps it hurts my eyes.

Good by Google, it was a nice time!

edit: -90% today on 2 sites.

[Andylew]

Once again what a mess!

Ive always found a search for a popular childrens pink pig cartoon character followed by wiki give me a good idea of how things are looking with one site I run. Today.... the first 3 pages are from the same site! well except for wikipedia at the top of course!

Google, when will you drop this daft mutiple listings for one domain nonsense its getting worse with panda...

RIP organic results, google is a paid search engine. #googlegreed

[johnhh]

@martiniceweb
Brands have dominated in our sector for months - often with multiple listings

[Martin Ice Web]

@johnhh, yes but it got worse with this 2 weeks super trooper quality update. It is firing right in the knees of every independend domain. Heck every search ends up with the same sites.


But what's nice that bing has almost prepanda/penguin results. It makes more fun to search with them as with g*.

[turbocharged]

I agree with johnhh that many queries are returning a subset of brands; many of which include host crowding. This lack of diversity leads me to believe that Google aims to become a brand engine instead of offering its users true diversity. This is an excellent strategy that would appeal to new users. However, most users have self-educated themselves over the years and understand who the major brands are. For these people, returning three back to back Amazon listings for a widget, in the top organic positions, serves very little use.

I don't know about anyone else here, but lately I have been using another search engine to locate items/information that I am looking for online. I would consider myself an advanced user, and to be perfectly honest, was offended by the results that Google was displaying. So far I am pleased with the results I am getting outside of Google. When compared, the *other search engine* is not displaying its own brands in excess (YouTube, Blogspot, etc.) and the data set is quite diversified. This user experience is much more friendly and does not leave me with the pushy salesman impression that Google does.

[EditorialGuy]

I don't know about anyone else here, but lately I have been using another search engine to locate items/information that I am looking for online.

I think it's important to distinguish between "items" and "information." If I want to search for a book, I'll probably go to Amazon. If I want to search for a computer part, I'll probably go to an electronics site. If I want to order outdoor gear, I'll go to the same co-op that has been selling me outdoor gear since 1971. If I want to buy a camera, there's a big photo retailer that I always use. I don't need Google, Bing, DuckGoGo, etc. to help me find who sells books, computer parts, outdoor gear, or cameras.

On the other hand, when I want information (which may or may not be related to a purchase), I'll go to Google. After all, Google is far better at sorting and organizing Web content than it is at sorting and organizing Web retailers.

Of course, there are times when a search engine can be helpful for e-commerce searches. If I'm looking for something esoteric (say, custom-made booties for Bearded Collies, or a part for a 1953 Iso Isetta), I'm more likely to find what I need from an a mom-or-pop Web site in Google than at Amazon or Newegg. And Google is likely to show decent results because there won't be a million generic drop-shippers serving up boilerplate copy for Beardie booties or Isetta parts. Even though my searches may be "transactional" in such cases, Google will be able to deliver adequate (or better) results because those results will be based on unique site content.

[robster124]

@johnhh - in same boat as you. still not even 1 change in UK serps i monitor at all for what must be weeks now. in fact id stick to my earlier statement that the serps seem eerily stuck if anything from my view. perhaps not surprising given recent talk though of niche specific algo changes, e.g. payday loans etc. perhaps our niches arent important enough to warrant any changes? most of my targeted search terms are not big money phrases far from it. perhaps thats why.

[ColourOfSpring]

And since they changed the title colors in serps it hurts my eyes.

MartinIceWeb, what colours are you seeing?

I'm having two weird problems with Google's colours:-

1. All the links in the SERPs are purple when using Chrome browser. ALL links. It seems I'm not the only one having this problem:-

productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/tjv015ozXs0

(copy & paste above link, doesn't seem to work as a normal link!)

Obviously if all links look like I've visited them, it's very confusing....

2. Wierdly, in Firefox, all the URLs are a horrible, garish lime green. See screenshot:-

[imgur.com...]

....only in Firefox.

I've cleared cache - same problem.

[diberry]

After all, Google is far better at sorting and organizing Web content than it is at sorting and organizing Web retailers.

They were before they started trying to turn every informational query into a transactional one. I've been using Bing for informational queries for a long time now, and prefer it greatly. I only use Google if I can't find what I want in Bing... and then it's up to me to find the exact super long-tail query that will get Google on the clue bus to realizing what it is I'm really after. I don't have to do that on Bing.

[aristotle]

Matt Cutts on June 25:
"Multi-week rollout going on now, from next week all all the way to the week after July 4th."

Does "to the week after July 4th" mean that this rollout ends at the beginning of next week on this coming Monday?

[EditorialGuy]

They were before they started trying to turn every informational query into a transactional one.

I've wondered about that. When I search on a keyphrase that could be either transactional or informational, I often see results that are biased toward e-commerce. IMHO, it would make a lot more sense for Google to be biased toward informational results in such situations, partly because of Google's stated mission ("to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible") and partly because e-commerce vendors would then have a greater incentive to buy ads.

Still, I'd guess that what appears to be a bias toward transactional has less to do with Google's philosophy than it does with the types of sites that are spending big bucks on SEO (including purchased links).

[EditorialGuy]

Does "to the week after July 4th" mean that this rollout ends at the beginning of next week on this coming Monday?

It could just as easily mean seven days after July 4, meaning July 11. Still, I wouldn't take his statement too literally. It's likely that the update will end when the data rollout is complete and Google's search team feel comfortable with the results.

[NavyCS]

Well, if they wanted about.com and wiki to once again dominate results, then they should be feeling pretty comfortable about now.

[Saffron]

Well, if they wanted about.com and wiki to once again dominate results, then they should be feeling pretty comfortable about now.

It's ironic isn't it? They rolled out Panda to hit these sites, and they are dominating search results now and the "good" sites, who've worked hard for years have been penalised.

The content farms must be loving this.

[EditorialGuy]

They rolled out Panda to hit these sites, and they are dominating search results now and the "good" sites, who've worked hard for years have been penalised.

Google's view of the Web seems to have become more like network TV (a few major general-interest channels) and less like cable TV (a large number of niche channels). But that may be less about Google's intent than about the ability of sites with millions of pages to skew Google's search results through sheer "link clout."

Lately, the SERPs have been showing a mixture of obvious (and barely adequate) megasite results and really weird (and completely inadequate) EMD results for the informational phrases that I typically search on. It's as if Comcast had introduced a new Basic Cable plan with the major networks and a random sampling of community-access channels.

[aristotle]

EditorialGuy:
It's likely that the update will end when the data rollout is complete and Google's search team feel comfortable with the results

I don't understand this. What if Google's search team doesn't feel comfortable with the results and doesn't know how to fix them? If all the latest data has been input and processed by the current version of the algorithm, then isn't the rollout over regardless of the level of comfort in Google's search team?

[Saffron]

I've noticed two sites in particular that dominate in my field. And a further 3 who also rank well. I'm still on first page (mostly), but way down the bottom.

My original competitors (who were all very good) are nowhere to be found.

This has financially ruined us. I am sure they are hurting too.

[HuskyPup]

partly because of Google's stated mission ("to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible")

But hasn't that been superceded by the Knowledge Graph?

[googleblog.blogspot.co.uk...]

It's all getting terribly, terribly messy ... it reminds me of the school kids in the science lessons always blowing-up everything and never achieving a thing!