Matt Cutts: Google multi-week rollout going on now

It's not quite clear what's rolling out, though. Some coments in our June 2013 Update thread [webmasterworld.com...] (in posts starting June 25th) cite this SearchEngineLand article... [searchengineland.com...]

Barry discusses whether it's a Panda update or the fabled payday loans algorithm change.

I think its Panda, I also yesterday, for a few hours saw a spike in traffic, but now returned to normal. Well normal its not, the site has been hit for over 2 years, by probably Panda.

I think its Panda also, pretty horrific traffic today.

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

Does that even make sense?

What is the difference to the previous weeks? It was feeling like there was an update every day!

Here's what I see so far on a Panda 1.0 site. Pushed down yesterday on a main keyword from a page 2 position to page 4. Page 2 mostly taken over by major brands not previously in those positions.

My site was hit by Panda 1.0 (US ecommerce affiliate). I'm noticing a huge shift in traffic patterns for the past few days. Most of this traffic does not convert at all - most of the terms are long tail and I am seeing an almost complete shift day to day for the various keywords driving traffic. My overall traffic has been relatively consistent - but most of it feels like junk / non-targeted traffic.

My money is on this being a Panda update as well for this multi-week update. My site will typically get this junk traffic right at the start of the last few Panda updates, but it usually clears out and returns to a consistent baseline after a couple of days. This feels like it is going to take a lot longer to (hopefully) return to a baseline of non-junk traffic.

I am also seeing a huge spike in WMT crawling - which may or may not correspond to this update.

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

Does that even make sense?

Certainly doesn't to me, if he means until 12th/13th July then why not say so?

Are they being serious, 2 weeks of updates? That's a lot of garbage to clear out:-)

If it is a jolting update then it makes sense. They have stated that Panda is rolling out over 10 days now. That would put us at July 5th right now. So not much larger.

I was searching on a Google to find out a book but all I got just junk results, literally junk results. Then I tried two different search engines so far duckduckgo brought me what I wanted.

Half of the Google page is filled up ads and it's quite difficult to find out results on first and second page.

Google is becoming junk, useless and pathetic search engine lately!

Why does this Update remind me of Willy Wonka's death chant?

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going.
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing.
Is it raining?
Is it snowing?
Is a hurricane a blowing?

Not a speck of light is showing
so the danger must be growing.
Are the fires of hell a glowing?
Is the grisly reaper mowing?
Yes! The danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing.
And they're certainly not showing
any signs that they are slowing!

I'm seeing changes on traffic and other stuff since Sunday

I'm seeing three and four results from same domain on top, followed by big brands and then everyone else bottom of page and beyond. (the big brands spend $$$ on AdWords) just a coincidence of course.

I'm seeing three and four results from same domain on top

I can see 10 results of the same domain for some searches, all results on first page!

Domain clustering breaking...

The "Payday Loans" thing in the UK looks very different, if that anything to go by. BBC, Guardian, Wiki etc. Well if I was actually looking for a quick loan then the banners look very well targeted, unless of course I am searching for a news story to get my loan from.

The bottom line is profit. If the organics are too good, Google's profit goes down, it's not a conspiracy, it's plain obvious.

I wonder just how Matt and his term can measure anything related to success in cleaning up the results, when they make so many changes. The earnings from Adwords can be measured though, by the second if need be.

I wonder just how Matt and his term can measure anything related to success in cleaning up the results, when they make so many changes. The earnings from Adwords can be measured though, by the second if need be.

I've thought this too.

-Assume a time period with no notable changes to layout or appearance for the paid ads.

-Assume Google tracks, by query, the percentage of searches that click on the paid ads

-If that percentage goes up in a statistically significant way, doesn't that indicate that the quality of the organic results has gone down?

The only other factor I can think of is some change where dramatically better ads show up. Seems, though, that could be filtered out by only counting changes where clicks increase across all paid ads, versus just one really well-written one.

Otherwise it seems a pretty direct way to measure organic quality.

WOW! Results in a retail market I follow are complete junk while there hasn't been much change in other areas I follow.

When I say JUNK I mean they decimated (dropped to #16+) every single retailer of a particular product and have information sites like wikipedia and other nonsense.

Phew, good thing those Google ads are still relevant.

This is obviously a test to see what they can get away with, as I doubt a team as sophisticated as the one at Google wouldn't notice or make errors like this. So I have 2 questions for all of you:

1)Say their test goes well. Do you think results like this across the board will drive visitors away, or do you think Google's brand is so strong that people will search and search until they realize that its just more conducive to click ads (but still never leave Google)?

2)Just from my observations about some things going on with adwords, do you think the cracks are beginning to show and Google is becoming desperate to come up with/show more revenue on the balance sheet?

Mozcast reporting Weather for Tuesday, June 25 at 113 degrees!

I'm seeing lots of Domain clustering at the top for Authority sites.
My site is getting pushed down a bit.

I've got a site thats ranking for a links page thats taken top slot for one of my terms ...I'd be laughing at Cutts and his merry little crew if it wasn't for the fact my traffic has tanked !

I cannot see G leaving this is place, least not long term, short term yes, after all they have some pretty big tax bills to pay so will be pushing traffic towards adwords

Things are definitely in flux. On a few SERPs our results have shifted by 3 or 4 spots, but not all. I'll have to dig a little more deeply to see what's going on, but it could all be for naught if they just move back by next week (which is common for us in a Panda rollout).

When you're continually updating or rolling out new pieces of the algorithm, and the search results are continually going through major shifts, then it must mean that they were either bad before or they're bad now. A good algorithm would provide relatively stable results, not continual turmoil.

re:MozCast 113

Serps Volatility is only reporting normal. Don't think I can put link but just google "SERPs Volatility".

Wouldn't it just send everyone in fits if what is happening is that they are rolling back all the updates for the last 2.5 years finally realizing that their serps have continually gotten worse with all their black and white updates. Of course they would not admit it publicly. They would call it a new, long, rolling, unnamed update.

Wouldn't it just send everyone in fits if what is happening is that they are rolling back all the updates for the last 2.5 years finally realizing that their serps have continually gotten worse with all their black and white updates. Of course they would not admit it publicly. They would call it a new, long, rolling, unnamed update.

The people in Adwords would tell you the serps have done nothing but improve. The paid serps are more relevant than ever. I've actually had someone who works in Adwords tell me this.

I really feel like organic search has matured enough that there are several engines that give great results, whether that be Bing, Google, Ixquick or DuckDuckGo.

Webmasters tend to tell their customers their preferences and it spreads. I think we may be approaching one of those special times on Webmasterworld. I remember when I was telling people here around 2001 that I was super confident Altavista was going down, and people thought I had lost my marbles.

With the prevalence of ad blockers and other engines providing results as good as google, I'm pretty close to saying google will lose some search and ad market share in the next year or two, possibly rapidly.

Wouldn't it just send everyone in fits if what is happening is that they are rolling back all the updates for the last 2.5 years finally realizing that their serps have continually gotten worse with all their black and white updates. Of course they would not admit it publicly. They would call it a new, long, rolling, unnamed update.

Let's just hope it is not a continuation of the anti-small business crusade.

do you think the cracks are beginning to show and Google is becoming desperate to come up with/show more revenue on the balance sheet

Bound to happen sooner or later - their kind of past ad revenue growth is not sustainable indefinitely. There will be slaughter, but this will eventually boomerang.

.

[edited by: heisje at 7:57 pm (utc) on Jun 26, 2013]

All I see currently is the continued march of American brands... and Google funded wikipedia.

No real change here in the UK

The bottom line is profit. If the organics are too good, Google's profit goes down, it's not a conspiracy, it's plain obvious.

Google have learnt that uncertainty in organics, and certainty in Adwords means more people click on Adwords. It's so so simple. It makes webmasters more likely to advertise, it makes searchers more likely to click the ads. It's really that simple.

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

Does that even make sense?

Matt Cutts is the defacto Google spokesperson to webmasters, yet is unbelievably bad at communicating. Either that means he really IS unbelievably bad at communicating, OR it means he is deliberately using ambiguous language to confuse us. Remember that Google love to give webmasters uncertainty. I can imagine his Google buddies making Orwell jokes just prior to Cutts going on air in his videos.

I think Matt Cutts has been very transparent and generous in his communication recently. Otherwise this thread wouldn't have been started, for example. Thanks Matt. Much appreciated.