Google Algorithm Update Today – Again
September 24, 2009
About two to three weeks ago there was an up date by Google, I was on holiday and really didn’t get much of a chance to see the effects. The one and only major effect I noticed at that time was a tuning down of the exact match on domain names.
Effectively this was also a tuning down on brands, something Google had placed more importance on during the last year. It didn’t affect rankings much but it took away the 8 set on site wide links in the search results. To a certain extent I was lucky as the 8 set on site wide links was replaced by the weak 4 side wide, but only as a single line and not the usual two columns. However I did end up with a second indented listing, this more than made up for the loss of the eight site wide links and as a whole it take up more real estate on at the top of the rankings.
Today Google have brought in their latest update called Google caffeine. I first became aware of caffeine from reading Aarons blog, (I am an avid reader of his blog and I am member of the form there – the best on the internet for SEO professionals). From there I was pointed to Blackdog who created a great comparison site for current results and the new caffeine results.
In general there is not a huge difference in most of the ranking and I think few people apart from SEOs will notice much of a difference. But there are differences and here they are
- Trust factors on links – this has been dialled up
- Links outside of all the other search results
- Age
Trust Factor
Websites that have good trustworthy links are not going to be hit in anyway with today’s update. The one site I have seen is removed completely for its main key search term had somewhat spamy links. It is in the credit area and the site has been sitting in the middle of the first page for the last year or so. It has not been bouncing around and neither have the other sites around it. This is an easy fix, and one that I should have done sometime ago. However now that it has been removed it will be interesting to see if just building some trust links will be enough for it to be brought back to the same position or even higher and how long that will take.
Links outside Other Search Results
This one website has no common links with other websites in the same vertical. Again I have always known about this issue and I was sure it was stopping the website from climbing higher in the search results.
To fix I just need to rip the links from the other sites and take the time, (when?), and build some links within the same vertical. Not so easy or quick a fix.
Age of Website
The website is less than two years old. This is one of the reasons I have not spent so much time on it. All the sites it completes with on the first page of the search results are 5 to 10 years old. Impossible fix.
As with most others who build their own websites, when I buy a domain name I put up some content and a few links to it – and then let it age. I have had the misery of trying to promote a new domain and website, and I would rather not subject myself to that again.
On the whole these new update have not been much of a problem. It has affected one of my websites and one client website. My website has had no work done on it this year, which is the same with all the others in the same vertical.
The client site is under going some major work, so I expect it to work out okay – as it was not ranking for anything a few months ago.
Disclaimer – ah there is always one – and usually I am quite opinionated without the need for this. I was not expecting Google caffeine till November sometime, so the results today could simply be Google testing – I will continue to check the results and will update if I see other changes.
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