Google Confirms Algo Change: "Quality Update"

[netmeg]

Earlier this month, some publishers began noticing changes to Google’s search results. We had asked Google if this due to a Panda Update or any other type of update, but Google replied no. Since then, more reports came in, with the change even being dubbed the “Phantom Update” because something did seem to have happened, even if Google wasn’t acknowledging it.

Now Google has. After more follow-up this week, the company told Search Engine Land that while no spam-related update had happened, there were changes to its core ranking algorithm in terms of how it processes quality signals.

[searchengineland.com...]

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 6:26 pm (utc) on May 20, 2015]
[edit reason] updated link [/edit]

[Spiekerooger]

@aristotle: I'm totally with you in that google is data hungry and loves all the data they can get.

But has anyone wiresharked what data is sent to google by chrome (for me, the safebrowsing platform by google as well as googles cdn and font platform all fall in this line as well)? Imagine having to use the browsing session logs of all chrome users as a data dump and then having to find the right patterns in this data? I would rather go by a sample sized big enough, extract patterns and features and than use this as a positive learning set for machine learning. (and by that a ranking signal could be the background color of a footer of a site)

But still: I'll first have to see a report where someone wiresharked chromes network traffic to google data centers and decoded this traffic to start believing in them using chrome user metrics as a ranking signal.

[aristotle]

Spiekerooger If we're talking about ways to measure "quality", in my opinion user metrics has to be at or near the top of the list as the long term solution. You have your opinion, I have my opinion.

[Planet13]

Darn!

Since May 1, might site is down 3.5% over previous time period (i.e., last 18 days of April)

I know that isn't a big loss, but since traffic was growing about 9% month-over-month for the last year up until May 1, looking at a net loss of 12% of traffic.

Drats!

[Leosghost]

But has anyone wiresharked what data is sent to google by chrome

Yes..( mentioned it here a year or so ago ) and once I saw how much data was being sent ( lots )..removed chrome permanently..
Only installed it to see if/what/how much it was sending home to G..

[Planet13]

@ netmeg

ten years and I still need to be approved first. geezopete.

Yeah, well it's not like you're a top poster or senior member or in the top 100 in posts or anything like that.

Oh wait...

[Spiekerooger]

Aristotle, I'm totally with you in your definition about the best way in using user metrics to define quality, also with the list you posted earlier.

But just by analysing the sites that lost and the sites that won in this so called quality update I don't see those user metrics correlate to much of the ranking changings. What I see is that sites that have misleading or hard to decipher brand searches or navigational searches (or none of those at all) loosing and sites that have a better brandability on the winners site.

[Spiekerooger]

@Leosghost:

could you decipher what kind of information chrome was/is sending home?

Found this old panda thread where you posted about it ( [webmasterworld.com...] ) and some other information from ScareCrow, but have you seen chrome sending home data on every page visit (not site visit, safebrowsing is doing that in about every browser)?

[netmeg]

(that's probably for a different thread - this one is about the Quality Update)

[Leosghost]

<I agree with netmeg..getting OT here..But to give you a brief answer>
every page visit..

I might re-install it to see what they have added to it's "abilities"..
</end of OT>

Overall I did well out of the latest "quality" update..objectively G serps got a little* better..
*G still has a page which I set up which as zero content on facebook ( but 1000's of "followers" ) ranking higher than the dotcom ( with content ) "6 letter" domain that I have of the same name.."Major Brand" bias ( even promoting their supposed competitors ) is still alive and endemic in G..

[superclown2]

A Google quality update?

An oxymoron, surely.

However to be serious for a moment: I've watched a lot of black hat sites coming from nowhere then floating up quite high over the last couple of weeks. The common denominator is lots of forum links. I've been expecting them to get smacked but it doesn't seem to be happening yet.

[RedBar]

Quality?

More like update Promote US companies even more than they do now across every tld, their SERPs get worse and worse.

[seoskunk]

Oh so now it is an update is it?

[Martin Ice Web]

I see a pattern ill this about that is shifting serps on a daytime basis. At working hours we get "normal" traffic, at about 5pm when normal workes go home ( germany ) a switch is turned an traffic suddenly dries off. Its four weeks now and it makes me wonder if there is something like "business" and "private" flag for sites beeing implemented?

ecom, germany

[Nutterum]

This update was anything but quality. Many spammy sites are ranking at Page 1 at the moment. Some of them with blatant repetition use of the same keyword. Hell some landing pages are now filled with same keyword repeating 3-4 times in the _first_ sentence. Whatever this update is, it broke google.de entirely and made a good mess out of .co.uk . I may be biased but the quality dropped significantly in my niche (B2B niche)

[Martin Ice Web]

I may be biased but the quality dropped significantly in my niche (B2B niche)

I can confirm this, although we are in germany.
And we see a lot of affiliate site ranking very well.
#1 original manufacturer with description
#2-#5 affiliate sites with same description

I think if someone uses the "quality" description of the original he gets a quality rubber point from google and ranks very well.
Man i wish we could have serps back from before panda and penguin. Where there was
-no domain crowding,
-serps ranked after real quality,
-unbiased to brands
-serp entries with sub entries

[tibiritabara]

Hi @petehall,

It is including "doorway pages" but also more factors. I'm watching some falls in doorway pages, pages with poor content but high internal page rank, poor user experience, etc. All these pages connected to download soft industry.

[Edge]

Not that I know anymore than the next person... I'm going to call this the google "Quality of Revenue" update...

[chrisv1963]

Quality?

I'm still seeing a lot of number one listings for Pinterest pages in my niche. You know what I mean: the cloaking pages that first make you login to Pinterest before you can actually see the content. Is that quality? Mostly stolen content that you can only see if you log in to Pinterest? This is a joke. A real "quality" algo would penalize Pinterest for cloaking.

[rish3]

I'm still seeing a lot of number one listings for Pinterest pages in my niche. You know what I mean: the cloaking pages that first make you login to Pinterest before you can actually see the content. Is that quality?

It's the kind of organic listing that would encourage you to click on an ad instead, right?

[supercyberbob]

Like totally.

[chrisv1963]

It's the kind of organic listing that would encourage you to click on an ad instead, right?

Exactly

[JesterMagic]

@EditorialGuy - Not the best sites in the list. The only one really in my niche is About.com and I can't say they really have dropped much (or at all) due to the Phantom update

HubPages
About.com
eHow
Answers.com
Wikihow

[toidi]

But has anyone wiresharked what data is sent to google by chrome

I tracked the data sent to goog from the toolbar and it was everything i did online. Everything! Every keystroke made online was collected. That was when i deleted everything goog off my computer and shut down wmt.

[tibiritabara]

HI folks,

You can check using Semrush impact of this new google update. According to this source traffic from Google to @JesterMagic websites are:

USA
hugpages.com lost 21% traffic vi keywords (Kws).
About.com lost 15% traffic via kws
ehow.com lost 31% traffic via kws.
Answers.com no report traffic organic lost, however some data can indicate problems with google index.
Wikihow.com no report traffic organic lost

In the last both case some lost traffic from 4th may. (always according to semrush)

cheers

[Mentat]

In the mean time do a search for "site:softonic.com/s/" and this is the proof that must be a whitelist somewhere...

Quality update? I believe is a long tail update for Adsense publishers!

[aakk9999]

In the mean time do a search for "site:softonic.com/s/" and this is the proof that must be a whitelist somewhere...

The "site:" query returns a selection of indexed results for this site, this does not mean these would rank well enough for any keywords to get the traffic.

The page may be indexed and one could get to it by a well placed query (e.g. site: or searching for a quoted text), but that page may never get any organic traffic as it would not rank for any keywords people would search for.

[Mentat]

I know, but in this case they rank very, very high!

[Andem]

I can echo what Mentat says. Sometimes I see results for that site in the top 5 and in some cases, up to 5 results from that domain taking up multiple positions.

I think on average, the domain includes 10 ads per page!

I always wondered how such rubbish ranks and has for years and years.

[tibiritabara]

I'm checking some results and I'm not quite sure that all doorway pages have been included in this update. We can obtain more information next week.

cheers

[Paperchaser]

This stupid search engine need to stop messing around so much disturbance in one single month