Google Launches Yet Another Algorithm Change Today Affecting 12% of Searches
(February 25, 2011) – Google seems to be on the prowl in February having released a second major algorithm change earlier today. This round appears to have mainly been targeted at content farms such as eHow and Demand Studios. Demand Studios is one of the largest content farms out there.
So what is a content farm?
They employ thousands of writers and just churn out content like a machine releasing a thousand or more articles per day of content onto their site. The content is considered to be of average to low quality and is highly SEO optimized. Because of the sheer volume of content they’re pumping out and the fact that they are clearly targeting quantity over quality, they have become known as content farms.
Some of the alternate search engines actually block their content entirely because of their domination of long tail keywords. This has created lots of complaints to Google over the past few months and they appear to be really cracking down. Here is a quote for Google’s official announcement.
Straight From Google
“Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking – a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries – and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites – sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites – sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.” (quoted from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html ).
The impacts from today’s changes seem to be fairly minor, but we have seen a lot of them. Mostly in the 1 to 3 position loss ranges where they show up. For others that have been hit harder, it really does seem to be content quality related. We’ve seen a couple sites that just have okay to mediocre content and have been hit pretty hard. Re-read the quote above: “This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites” – well, that pretty much says it all. If you’re seeing your rankings negatively impacted by this algorithm change, then try to take a look at your site form a content quality perspective and compare it objectively to the sites that passed you up in the rankings.
Exact Match Domains Affected As Well
Earlier in the month Google also released an algorithm change that shook things up as well. The earlier changes appeared to be similarly focused and had similar results. However, there apparently was another focus from what we’ve observed in the extensive number of domains we manage. The trend that we saw was that EMD’s or Exact Match Domains and even domains that were not exact matches but had partial keyword matches were affected by the algorithm change (and not for the better). Many have complained about EMD’s for a long time now that they were given far too much favor in the rankings and apparently Google is listening.
Apparently Matt Cutts of Google made some comments in a speech back in November that he thought that exact match domains where getting too much credit in the rankings and that they would be looking into that in the next few months. Well, looks like they have. Now, we have seen varying degrees of impact. Some very minor, just losing a couple of spots down the page and others losing 30 to 50 placements. As always, domain age, authority and other metrics clearly have a significant influence as well, but it is clear that EMD’s value has been degraded. Furthermore I would extend that speculation beyond just EMDs and say that the benefit of having your primary keyword in the domain at all has been impacted. I say that because we’ve seen it first hand on dozens of sites and very few of them were exact match domain names, but they all had their primary keyword(s) in the domain name.
Another observation that we have seen is that site age seems to have more relevance now as well. Many of the sites and keywords that we analyzed that dropped a couple of spots were almost always newer than those that were now ranking above them. Again, there’s a lot that goes into the “authority” equation and age is just part of it, but in the update that hit a couple weeks ago, it seems to have been given a slightly higher weight.
Google is Watching
One of the comments that was interesting that they disclosed in their blog post was in regards to the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension. This is a feature that they recently released for Google Chrome that allows users to “block” sites from showing up in the search results. Google went on to say that they didn’t use this data for this update (okay, but who really knows) but that when they compared data to the most popularly blocked sites by users that 84% of them also were affected by this algorithm change. What you’ve got to take away from this is that everything you do on the Net is being used by Google. Time on site, page views per visitor, bounce rate, social buzz – it all matters – and they are constantly looking for new metrics as well such as this site blocker in Chrome.
So What Do You Do Now?
The facts are, Google’s goals today are the same as they were two years ago and the more you can get inside of their head and understand what they’re looking for, the better off you’ll be. Referring back to that same article quoted above, the very first sentence says: “Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible”. So stay focused on that goal – delivering quality and relevant content.
When changes come like this we have seen historically that at first (the first couple days) they hit more severe and then seem to back off a little bit. So be patient, things may improve in the next couple of days – time will tell. I think that when Google releases a major change like this and they get a lot of backlash they tend to “dial it back” just a bit. Again, that’s complete speculation but it is based on past observed trends. The most important thing that you can do is stay consistent with your linkbuilding efforts and stay the course.
What Does This Say About Where Things Are Headed?
Times are certainly changing and Matt Cutts has said that there are many more changes coming so expect that the next few months might be rather interesting to say the least. But let’s step outside of the box for minute and think longer term – like over the next couple of years. From recent trends and observations over the past several months, here’s some of our predictions about what’s to come and what you should be preparing for.
We believe quality onsite unique content will become more and more important. This is especially important for ecommerce type sites – we believe that the trends of this year have shown that Google is really re-thinking how it approaches ecommerce sites and their thousands of keyword rich URL product pages with very little content on them. But the biggest trend that we feel will continue to grow is that of social media relevance. Imagine if you will for a minute that instead of your site being measured by its link count it was measured by its Facebook Likes, Tweets and Digg’s. It is our firm belief that having a strong plan for social media will be vital to long term SEO efforts. What better way for Google to define how relevant you are to a search term that to gauge it from the “social buzz” that your site attracts? That’s one of the many reasons we are so intrigued by Social Media Science’s Synnd product. We’ve been using it for a couple of months now and are putting together an in-depth review for you shortly – so stay tuned.
Make sure to let us know with your comments below how your site was impacted by these February algorithm changes – good, better or indifferent – we’d like to hear your observations as well.
Forget writing content, finding link partners, evaluating and testing the best networks - just let us do it for you cheaper than you can do it yourself. Get a mix of link types, unique content, high PR links, a monthly Press Release - plus reports and rank tracking.
On February 26, 2011 Abdullah wrote:
What I want to say is just: Google SUCKS!!!!!
On February 26, 2011 Troy wrote:
LOL… yeah, I hear ya Abdullah…
In fact many are echoing that same feeling. Businesses scramble for months to optimize their site rankings and Google flips a single digital switch and steals 70% of their traffic overnight by taking their #1 keyword to #7 or #8. There are a lot of people pretty pissed right now in the forums because Google just keeps tinkering away with their algorithm with indifference to how it impacts the many businesses and people that rely on Internet traffic for survival.
Trust me, you’re not alone…
-Troy
On February 26, 2011 Keeping Pigs wrote:
Well ironically enough, the only one of my 9 sites to take a hit is my one on keeping pigs… It’s a sweet, innocent little piglet of a site, entirely original content, no Adsense, just an EMD.
I’m actually putting together an ebook on keeping pigs, so am keeping it clean – and get slapped anyway.
All I can say is oink!
On February 26, 2011 Keeping Pigs wrote:
Interesting… for the fun of it I checked the pagerank of this page with FF… and my comment, shown to me above, isn’t really there.
How’d you do that?
On February 26, 2011 Troy wrote:
Yeah the EMD’s took a hit… not all of them but a lot did. And really it makes sense. There should be some extra boost to domains that have the keywords in them, but it has been overly exaggerated now for for quite awhile and I’ve speculated this change was coming for awhile now…
And definitely “keep it clean” with those pigs of yours….
LOL
Troy
On February 26, 2011 Kurt wrote:
I’ve been looking into social media also last week and I also came across Syndd. But what I’m afraid of is that Syndd will be seen by Google as a kind of “social content farm”. People tweeting and liking all kinds of topics without any relevance (I guess that’s part of what happens with Syndd) is going to lose weight quickly in the near future.
What are your thoughts on this?
On February 26, 2011 Alessandro wrote:
I don’t know why some (like Abdullah) are against Google. Yes, they rule, but at the same time they allow normal people to earn (good) money (a win-win situation); moreover, it’s clear that their intention is good: to create an internet full of good websites, and of good people. I also don’t like certain websites such as about.com (or worse) full of introductory notes ranking always high with searches while excellent website on the same topic are unknown. An what is the good in ranking high by just stating that “a good health tip is to drink much water”?
Just my opinion.
I liked the pig-website note, too!
Alessandro
On February 26, 2011 Floris wrote:
So, does this mean that linkbuilding with programs like SEOlinkvine have become void?
On February 27, 2011 MrSmith wrote:
I’m not google’s biggest fan. They are no doubt scummy. When you have that much influence and $$$. Any surprise they are scummy ? Imo, Goog is still morally superior to the other net giants. Facebook and binghoo.
End of the day though. I can understand many of the moves google makes. They constantly change and spend so much time worrying about user experience. Cause they want to keep the money rolling in. Since google practically has a license to print money. I can’t blame them for looking out for their interests.
Rest of us will just have to roll with the punches google throws. Google makes the rules. We just have to follow them or adapt. But they will always be on the lookout to penalize people who learn to game their algo’s.
They want quality results … aka: Relevant results and they want their users to have the best user experience they can give them. Finding what they want online using google’s tools. Google’s looking out for google.
A website with the keyword pig in it. Doesn’t necessary make it a quality or relevant result on the topic. Oh well, whoever told you google has to follow rules that suit you … lied. Google is going to look out for google.
SEO’s and people who want to push the envelope and tweak to get the best advantage out of the search engines algo’s. Just needs to accept the fact that it’s a continuing education process.
Just my opinions on it.
On February 27, 2011 Kelvin wrote:
I recently launched a new site this week, and I implemented social media onto it. Hoping to see its effect. I am optimistic about the outcome.
On February 27, 2011 Troy wrote:
Absolutely MrSmith, SEO is a continual process of learning and adapting to change for sure and not for the faint of heart…
Thanks for stopping by…
Troy
On February 27, 2011 Troy wrote:
Hi Kelvin,
Congrats on the new site. Be patient – that is key with SEO – it’s not getting any easier to get started with new sites and can take 90 to 120 days before you start to see rankings. There’s no hard and fast rules, but just don’t get disappointed looking for quick results.
Here’s a couple of blog posts you might want to check out…
http://articlesubmissionreview.com/blog/seo-baselines-rank-tracking-all-the-boring-stuff-you-gotta-do
http://articlesubmissionreview.com/blog/the-true-cost-of-ownership-of-article-submission
http://articlesubmissionreview.com/blog/article-submission-the-three-month-phenomenon
Take care and good luck!
Troy
On February 27, 2011 John V Denley wrote:
This is not Googles fault, it is the people who manipulate sites to take advantage of their superior knowledge of the Google algorithms. Google have to keep trying to win the battle of good search results vs manipulated search results. Blaming Google for this is a little like blaming anti-virus providers for the fact that there are virus’s around.
Just because a site has the words “pigs are great” on the site, doesn’t necessarily mean that it should appear on the google search results for “pigs”.
Interestingly if you do a search for my website “www.johnwillfixit.com” google doesnt find it, but does find my other site “www.diarybooker.com” and my twitter account that refers to my http://www.johnwillfixit.com” website… it also brings up a ‘higher ranked’ site which contains the words “john will fix it”
On February 27, 2011 Ricardo wrote:
An exact match domain site I own dropped from #1 to #11…just two days ago it was on #1…
On February 28, 2011 Jordy wrote:
eHow is still dominating the top three positions on Google. Not much of a change. I have a repair website that used to get a lot of traffic. I am an authority in my niche, a real professional.
The big fat eCow (MOOO)came along and has pushed me down in the SERPS with their pathetically mediocre content.
Example: How To Paint a House
1) Open the paint
2) Put it on the brush
3) Move the brush on the wood
Google needs to limit them to one result per query and not allow them above position nine.
On February 28, 2011 Troy wrote:
Hi Floris,
Thanks for your comment…
No, this update will have no impact on tools such as SEOlinkvine or other blog networks. The main target of this update is big content farms that are doing hundreds to even thousands of articles per day just for SEO purposes with no real emphasis on quality.
-Troy
On February 28, 2011 Troy wrote:
Hi Alessandro…
Well said… we certainly “love” Google for just those reasons you pointed out – they enable us to make a full time living online… but that doesn’t mean they don’t “drive us crazy” at times as well. And two major updates with three weeks is a bit much. But the bottom line is that there’s no good answer. They can’t publicize their algorithm or more manipulation will occur and the longer it stays stagnant the more the spammers will try to take advantage of whatever loophole they can find. So we just have to ride the tide – that’s all you can do…
-Troy
On February 28, 2011 Troy wrote:
Hi Kurt,
We’re in the middle of a review of Synnd right now – should be out in a couple of days…
This is one of the most exciting tools out there and we’ve been using it for 3 months now and are very, very impressed. Synnd has no risk at all of being viewed as a content farm. First it’s not content but just social bookmarking and such. Second, they have developed a terrific distribution model that uses every members IP as part of the distribution so there is no way that it leaves a footprint (we’ll go into that extensively in the upcoming review). We expect that Synnd will be one of our top recommended products very soon…
-Troy
On March 2, 2011 Jayson wrote:
I’m struggling to understand one important aspect of this change. How does Google define “unique” content? Will a Website with 100 pages of original content be penalized if the Webmaster distributes all 100 pages of content through channels such as EZA and blog networks?
Obviously, the content would not be “unique” anymore as it would be syndicated to various Websites. But I can’t see Google penalizing the original site for that. I mean, if it were possible to negatively affect rankings with offsite tactics like that, SEO companies would all be like mercenaries torpedoing each other’s competitors down. Mike and Troy, what’s your take?
On March 4, 2011 CarringtonStanleyMedia wrote:
Google always seem to be changing their rules and it’s interesting to learn more about it. I am not sure why they place so much emphasis on social sites though as it seems that these are as easily manipulated by those specialising in ladder climbing SEO. So many sites contain complete rubbish compiled from article spinners, it could be good to clear it out.
On March 8, 2011 Biznextdoor wrote:
Troy-
Great insight. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
As Google cracks down on content providers, do you see any algorithm change in the near future focusing on devaluing inbound links? After all the bad press associated with Overstock and J.C. Penny (similar to all the bad press with Demand Media, etc.) do we think more change is on the way in addition to the changes mentioned above?
On March 8, 2011 Troy wrote:
Hi Biznextdoor…
It is our belief that inbound links are already starting to be devalued to some extent – not a lot, but factored into the overall equation differently. This is hotly debated and not something easily proven, but we strongly feel that over-optimizing inbound links for anchor text can lead to the opposite effect desired. In the past it has been pretty easy to “game the system” by aggressive anchor text linking, but I Google is getting wise to that. They are considering lots of other factors today than in the past – more variables that have an impact on the overall end result.
So while links are still a huge part, I think other factors that we’re even considered a few years ago are being looked at and in a niche specific way. By that I mean that we see evidence that the algorithm varies from niche to niche. So in certain niches that are more prone to spamming, for example, they may be more sensitive than others, etc… The bottom line is that we believe the algorithm is much more sophisticated than most suspect and that many, many factors are being taken into account – things like “time on site”, “bounce rate”, “presence” in social media, etc…
Links will always be a strong part of the SEO equation and certainly until you have a respectable number of links to your site of respectable quality and sources you don’t get taken serious by Google – we don’t see that changing any time soon. So our advice is continue your SEO link building, but mix it up more and vary not only your anchor text but the types of links you are getting and the sources you are getting them from much more so than you have in the past. We also strongly suggest you begin to create a social media presence if you have not done so already. Tools such as Synnd are great for that purpose and will become increasingly effective and important in the future.
-Troy
On March 8, 2011 Troy wrote:
Hi Jayson,
What Google was going after with the duplicate content was scrapers – people that scrape the content from one site (usually an article directory that syndicates the content) and then republishing it on their own site. This has long been a game of Adsense plays where people create these “auto blogs” that just feed scraped content into their site and try to make some Adsense revenue off them. The concept is to get 1000 sites that make you $10 or $15 a month, etc… To a large extent this tactic doesn’t work very well for a lot of reasons and it’s getting harder and harder since these algorithm changes.
There is another trend that we have seen personally on some Adsense sites that we have as well as elsewhere in the industry that is being observed where even though traffic has not necessary diminished Adsense revenue has. Though this is pure speculation on our part, we’re of the belief that they have likely tweaked the Adsense payouts with a “quality factor” that they apply to the site similar to the quality factor that Adwords uses.
Duplicate content will always exist on the Internet and there’s nothing wrong with it (what is a press release, for example, if not 100% duplicate content). The problem that they were trying to combat was it was getting too easy to game the system. People had scraper sites with crappy content that were outranking the original content they scraped!
Our advice is this. If you use EzineArticles or other article directories as part of your distribution channel, that’s fine. But don’t publish anything to them that comes from your site. Keep the two completely discreet from a content perspective. Put unique content on your site and use other content for SEO submissions. Many people do the following. They order an article and publish it on their site. Then later they spin it and republish it on a bunch of article directories, etc… It is our recommendation that you not follow that tact any longer. Keep your content unique and the SEO fodder separate – it’s just smart.
-Troy
On March 8, 2011 Jayson wrote:
Hi Troy,
Thanks for the detailed response. Since the algorithm update I’ve seen internet marketers everywhere giving the same advice: “Don’t syndicate the exact same content that’s on your Website.” However I haven’t yet seen a good reason why not to.
Obviously, there are huge costs involved with writing new content for SEO fodder, so if it’s OK to distribute your content completely unchanged as it appears on your Website, you can save a lot of money and arguably realize the same benefits.
My question is, why not syndicate your Website’s content? Of course, it’s important to make sure that Google has indexed your content on your own domain first. But, assuming that’s done, what can be the problem? I decided to do some investigation and ended up writing a 4000+ word blog post at my Website that examines all the evidence and data I can come up with. The post includes verbiage straight from Google regarding syndication.
I know you’re busy guys, but if you can make some time to read my post I think you’ll see that I have researched this topic pretty thoroughly, and nowhere have I found any evidence to back up what seems to be a widely perpetuated fallacy.
I am actually doing a giant test of my own; I just launched a Website with over 100 pages of completely fresh, unique, quality content, and I am in the process of syndicating that content as far and wide as I possibly can.
Here’s a link to my post, I would appreciate your feedback:
http://www.jaysondemers.com/internet-marketing/duplicate-content-all-evidence-considered-all-questions-answered
On March 9, 2011 wms affiliate wrote:
Great post I too was affected by the algo change but I just built more relevant backlinks to my site which jumped it back to the top of google. I keep seeing alot of people complaining about this but when things like this happen you just need to make your site better and stronger. Nice post.
On March 10, 2011 Troy wrote:
Hi Jayson,
Nice post by the way (your blog post I mean). You put a lot of effort and research into that. So, without writing a 4000 word response, here’s my answer in a two paragraphs or less…
Basically you answered your own question in your post on your blog. Can you do it? Sure. Should you? I don’t think so. Here’s the thing, it really depends upon the site you are promoting. If it’s just a test site or an affiliate site that you’re still tinkering with to determine if you’re going to pursue it more aggressively, etc… then sure if it’ll save you a few bucks and you can’t afford to do it otherwise, sure, go ahead. But, our advice here is more geared towards small business owners and people making their full time income off of their site and my advice stands – protect your money site and protect your content. As your own research pointed out, syndicating the content from your site can facilitate other higher authority sites actually out ranking you with your own content. Personally that’s just not a risk we’re willing to take nor one we would advise readers to take.
Anyway, thanks for your very well thought out response and in-depth research… might make sense for you going after 50 sites, but ask yourself this. If you had just one site making $5k a month and depended on that sites income to feed the family and put the kids through college, which way would you go? I can assure you we don’t syndicate our content here or even spin it and syndicate it. We keep our site content unique and write separate SEO content and for *most* people that probably makes the best sense as well. The risks of devaluing your site’s authority and rankings simply outweigh the potential rewards of some cheaper links.
Take care,
Troy
On March 10, 2011 Jayson wrote:
Hi Troy,
Thanks for taking the time to read through it. Interestingly, two nights ago I was introduced to a local entrepreneur (in the Seattle, WA area) who has done consulting FOR Google on how to optimize their own algorithm. I discussed the topic of same-content syndication with him and he advised me not to do it.
He said that, particularly after the Farmer algorithm update, this could do more harm than good.
Needless to say, getting advice from a consultant for Google’s algorithm was enough to change my mind. I immediately emailed my VA from my iPhone and told her to stop submitting all my content to EzineArticles. She was able to undo all the submissions before they were approved, so they never went live on EZA’s Website.
I am still intrigued by this debate, however, as there’s no denying that IF you could syndicate your exact content for backlinks without worrying about negative side effects, you could save a HUGE amount of money on content creation expenses. So I’ve decided to conduct the test on a much smaller scale. Perhaps it was too ambitious of me to start with a 100+ page Website full of unique content for which I spent a lot of money and time creating.
I’ll conduct the test, but it’ll be with a smaller, 10-20 page Website. I need to do this to definitively answer my own question.
But in the meantime, I appreciate your feedback Troy.
-Jayson
On March 10, 2011 Troy wrote:
Hmmm…. so he told you exactly what I had already said? Sounds like good advice… LOL
Sorry, couldn’t resist…
Take care and thanks for updating us!
-Troy
On March 10, 2011 Jayson wrote:
Haha, yes Troy, he did. But I feel like I still have to conduct the test, even if on a small scale. Since I can’t find anything from the Big G itself saying it’s a no-no (in fact, they clearly endorse it), I gotta give it a go.