Google's Matt Cutts: More Pages Doesn't Directly Influence Your Search Rankings

Google's Matt Cutts: More Pages Doesn't Directly Influence Your Search Rankings
Yesterday, Google's Matt Cutts posted a video saying that the number of pages does not directly impact your search rankings.

There may be a side affect to a site having more pages. Typically, sites with more pages have two benefits:

(1) They have more opportunity to rank for a more diverse set of keyword phrases, assuming your pages are targeting more keywords.

(2) Typically, larger sites have more links to their site and thus may have higher PageRank, which Google uses to set your crawl depth and for ranking.

But the number of pages on a specific site doesn't have a direct impact on your rankings.

by Barry Schwartz

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Google Removes Your Manual Penalty But Your Rankings Won't Improve

I see threads like this Google Webmaster Help thread all the time. In summary they say, my manual penalty was revoked by Google after I spent the time cleaning up my mistakes but days, months, and even years later, my rankings, traffic and thus sales have not improved at all.

Often, I'll see people get all excited after Google removes a manual action within Google Webmaster Tools, only to see that as false hope.

In early September, I talked about this in a poll I ran asking Does A Manual Action Removal Impact Google Rankings? We have almost two-hundred responses and the sad results are in.

53% said their rankings never improved, even after a year. 12% said they saw a ranking improvement within days, 14% said within a month, 8% said within 3 months, 7% within 6 months and 7% within a year. But 53% said never.

I didn't ask if they saw a full recovery. If I did, I suspect that 53% number to jump to 90% or higher.

Often, when it is a link penalty, the removal of the penalty doesn't help much. Why? Because those links that once counted, no longer do and thus the rankings will not return until you garner new, quality links.

But with content or other spam issues, why no recovery?

Have you seen the same? Do you agree with this poll?

by Barry Schwartz

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Google Closing Authorship Project?

Google Closing Authorship Project?
AJ Kohn, someone who focuses more on authorship and rich snippets than most SEOs I know, wrote a story named Authorship Is Dead, Long Live Authorship.

In that story, he describes why he thinks the classic Authorship Project is slowing being closed down. In short, he thinks that because classic authorship is opt in, it isn't easy to scale at the size Google needs. So Google uses other methods to extract authorship/rich snippet like data from sources to show the richer data in the search results.

So what he means is that what you see in the search results, the authorship display, is not dead. But maybe requiring webmasters to mark up their content and if they trust that markup, is dying.

by Barry Schwartz

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SEOs Get Ready For 15% Reduction In Google Rich Snippets

SEOs Get Ready For 15% Reduction In Google Rich Snippets
As many of you know, Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, announced at PubCon that you should expect a 15% reduction in the amount of rich snippets and authorship displayed in the Google search results.

There are several threads, including one at WebmasterWorld where webmasters and SEOs are preparing for the reduction in the richer display in the Google search results. Many noticed increases in click through rates and thus higher sales and traffic because of the increase in CTR. But if your site doesn't make the cut and you are part of the 15% reduction, how will you recoup?

To me, it makes sense. Why show rich snippets for all sites that have the markup? Google should reserve them for sites that they deem authoritative enough to display them. There are tons of spammy sites marked up with it. Let alone sites abusing it and spamming rich snippets.

A year ago, it seemed Google began cutting back on displaying rich snippets. This is all while making it easier for sites to mark up their pages. Heck, my authorship dropped out for several months and eventually returned - likely due to a bug on Google's part.

by Barry Schwartz

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Google: Your Disavow File May Not Be Accepted If...

Google: Your Disavow File May Not Be Accepted If...
Google's Eric Kuan said in a Google Webmaster Help thread that even if you use a disavow file to remove links, Google may not process them if they don't see you making a serious manual attempt at removing those links.

Other reasons why the disavow tool may not work for you include:

• Double check your disavow file and make sure the link you mentioned is properly disavowed. You can download your latest Disavow file by going to the Disavow tool, clicking "Disavow Links", and clicking "Download".

• Documentation is really good and can help when reviewing your site for reconsideration. Make sure that when you send in documentation that it's accessible, though. It looks like https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_RnM_AdwlOzRm55V3JKNVNoMDQ/edit?usp=drive_web hasn't been shared properly.

This is not new, but it is important to remind our readers.

by Barry Schwartz

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Google Penalty On WWW Revoked But Remains On Non-WWW

Google Penalty On WWW Revoked But Remains On Non-WWW
A WebmasterWorld thread has an interesting discussion around how a webmaster said his manual penalty was revoked on his WWW but remains on his non WWW.

The non WWW is 301 redirected to the WWW and the WWW is set as the preferred domain in Webmaster Tools.

Have you ever seen this case, where the WWW vs the non WWW don't have timed penalties properly?

by Barry Schwartz

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Google Matt Cutts Hints At Upcoming SEO Changes At PubCon

Google Matt Cutts Hints At Upcoming SEO Changes At PubCon
One of the highlights of the year for me is Matt Cutts talk at PubCon. So me not being there, being 6,000+ miles away, was unfortunate. It was the first PubCon I've missed in, well, I can't remember.
Anyway, there was some excellent note taking of his presentation, plus PubCon streamed it live, so I saw a glimpse of it. I wanted to pull out the highlights and most important things Matt shared, specific to topics SEOs should be concerned with for the end of this year and 2014.
First, the live blogging I took this from include Bruce Clay, Search Engine Journal, Pole Vault Media, Search Mojo, Search Engine Land and Google+ via Brian Patterson. Of course, there is a ton of Twitter action from the event.

• Black Hat Hacking will be a core topic Google's web spam team will focus on. They hope to go after the hard core hacking tactics and reduce that impact on the search results.
• Child pornography will be blocked significantly in all countries, not just the US.
• Toolbar Page Rank may or may not be fixed. The "pipeline" to export the quarterly data broke and Google has no immediate plans to fix it.
• Mobile is going to be a key area in 2014, so pay attention to it.
• Auto complete, look to add request Auto complete to your forms.
• Top Ad Heavy Algo will get refreshed in a big way, see the previous update over here.
• Authorship 15% Reduction - Google is going to get picky on who they show authorship rich snippets for. So don't be surprised if yours goes away, look for ways to make yourself more authoritative. This includes rich snippets for your site...
• Better At JavaScript so don't be surprised to find out what Google gets into.

by Barry Schwartz

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Rare: Google Admits A Search Result Is Wrong

Rare: Google Admits A Search Result Is Wrong
It is rare for Google to admit they are wrong, at least with search quality. Part of the complaints with the Google stock price and questioning if the stock price matches Google's quality product these days... Google's Ryan Moulton admitted Google has a bug with, at least, one of their search results.

Ryan Moulton has been with Google's search quality team for over seven years. He is big into Hacker News and has been responding to Google complaints there for years.

One such complaint was readdressed on the topic of ranking w3schools.com above MDN resources. This is when Ryan famously responded higher quality content not necessarily more useful content. The topic came back up at Hacker News and this time, he admitted there was a bug.

If you search for [html iframe element scripting] you get an MDN result first, but to the wrong answer. Then it is followed by three w3schools results, also with "wrong, or completely useless" results.

by Barry Schwartz

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SEOs Adapt To Google's Hummingbird Algorithm

SEOs Adapt To Google's Hummingbird Algorithm
As you know, Google announced their Hummingbird algorithm about a month after it launched, claiming no one noticed and no one should notice. But we do think we did notice but no one can confirm that outside of Google and they won't.
That being said, clearly the search results are different since the launch of Hummingbird and SEOs will likely need to adapt.
Some forward thinking SEOs and webmasters are already thinking up what the end game for Google is with Hummingbird and how to adapt their sites to fit that box.
A WebmasterWorld thread has some really interesting conversation around what some believe the key difference is before and after Hummingbird.

Unique Content versus Useful Content

While unique content is more of a Google Panda related thing, useful content although Panda, is maybe more Hummingbird.
Google understands searchers queries differently with Hummingbird than they did before. So how can the search results not change. How can you as a webmaster change your content to make it more useful, while it still being unique, to encourage Google to show your site over your competitors.

Don't optimize for keywords, optimize for a satisfied customer from stage one of the buying cycle to the end. Is it that easy? What if you don't offer all the stages? Well, I assume that is not exactly the point.
Robert believes this will eventually lead to search results that are "less a collection of content farms and more a collection of pages created with the user genuinely in mind." I am not 100% confident.
Keep in mind, this is just one theory of many and for the most part, the search results did not change that much compared to let's say Penguin 2.1.

Author: Barry Schwartz 

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Google On Original Content Related To Product Descriptions

Google On Original Content Related To Product Descriptions
Original and unique content is always something Google says is a very important aspect of ranking and providing value. But what about when you sell a commodity item that everyone else sells, like pens or home appliances and so on?
You and a thousand other web sites are given the same photos, product descriptions, specifications, videos and so on from the manufacturer that everyone else gets. What makes your content better without you doing something better with the content manually?

The answer is nothing but does it matter?
Google's John Mueller, in a Google Webmaster Hangout talked about just that.
So in some cases, maybe original source of content is not always the most important thing. 

Author: Barry Schwartz

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Google Penguin 2.1 Was A Big Hit

Google Penguin 2.1 Was A Big Hit
Late Friday afternoon, Google's Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that they unleashed Penguin 2.1.
In short, Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, said it impacted about 1% of search queries.

Looking at the hundreds of comments on our quick post from Friday and looking at the threads out there in the webmaster and SEO communities, it seems like many many webmasters were impacted by this update.

We have threads at WebmasterWorld, Black Hat Forums, tons at Google Webmaster Help, Threadwatch and many others. Keep in mind, this was announced late Friday afternoon and the threads are just going to get worse when more people check their analytics after the weekend is over, sometime this morning.

I've seen screen shots of Google Analytics showing websites completely destroyed by this update. I've also seen screen shots of Google Analytics showing websites that recovered in a major way from previous Penguin updates. This had huge swings both ways for webmasters and SEOs. Some recovered and are back in business, while others are about to lose their businesses. Also, some it had no impact on at all. Like you all know, when one web site drops another one takes it place.

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Google's Matt Cutts: No PageRank Update Before 2014

Google's Matt Cutts: No PageRank Update Before 2014
It is now over 8 months since the last Google Toolbar PageRank update, which happened on February 4, 2013. At the six month point, Google told us a "no comment" on why there has not been a PageRank update.
@NielsBoschh asked Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, if there would be a PageRank update before 2014 and Matt Cutts said "I would be surprised if that happened."

So for all those waiting for a PageRank update this year, I wouldn't wait. In fact, I'd be surprised if we see another PageRank update in early 2014. Maybe they will do one yearly now or maybe Google will quietly want it to go away and not do anymore updates?

Author: Barry Schwartz

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Google Unleashes Penguin 2.1

Google Unleashes Penguin 2.1
Penguin 2.1 has officially been released today.

I saw signs of this around 9am EDT this morning but didn't see enough chatter to cover it yet. I suspect over the weekend the forums will light up. Some of the early stats I saw on sites that got hit were huge.

I'll have more details on this on Monday, with the impact on real webmasters.

Author: Barry Schwartz

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Did Google's Hummingbird Algorithm Hurt Your Site's Rankings?

Did Google's Hummingbird Algorithm Hurt Your Site's Rankings?
Last week, Google told us they pushed out a completely rewritten algorithm named Hummingbird.
They said the new algorithm was released a month or so ago and no one should have noticed it. But as I said, I think we did notice something. Why do I think that?

On 9/12, 9/4 and 8/24 we saw significant chatter in the forum to warrant us asking Google if there was an update. Google denied that there was an algorithm update all times. But all of these may correspond to a possible overlap with Hummingbird.

I cannot tell you if all of them are Hummingbird related or if none of them are. Only Google can tell you that.
All I can say is that on those dates, we saw complaints about ranking shifts. Google denied that they were anything. A month or so later, Google announces there was an algorithm update that completely rewrote the Google algorithm, it should have no visual impact on rankings and no one noticed anything. No one noticed anything? Really?

Again, I have no way to know when you may have noticed an update that was specific to Hummingbird. I suspect parts of Hummingbird has rolled out slowly over time, even before a month ago. But on which dates? Only Google knows. Do they correspond with 9/12, 9/4 and 8/24 - no idea.

So how do you know if the Google Hummingbird Algorithm hurt or improved your site in Google? You don't and will never know, without Google confirming the roll out dates of Hummingbird and also confirming nothing else launched on those dates that were related to ranking.

Author: Barry Schwartz 

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Google's John Mueller: "We Don't Use Authorship For Ranking"

Google's John Mueller: "We Don't Use Authorship For Ranking"
Yes, Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts did say rel=author can help search quality but he did also say Google is currently not using it.
John Mueller, a Google web trends analysts confirmed this one more time during a Google Hangout a few days ago. He said:

We don’t use Authorship for ranking

Mark Traphagen transcribed that part of the question. Which you can see in the video at 48 minutes and 24 seconds into the video.
Q: Why can't Google+ authorship prevent scraper sites from showing up above us in the search results?
John Mueller: Well, we don't use authorship for ranking, so it's not... because it's written by a well-known author, or it looks like it might have been written by a well-known author, that we'd show it higher up in the search results....

Q: Could you repeat that once more...
JM: We don't use it for ranking, at the moment. If you're seeing a situation where scraper sites are showing up above you, that's something that I would treat separately from any authorship markup that we have on your pages....

Author: Barry Schwartz

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Hummingbird: Google Rewrites Search Algorithm

Hummingbird: Google Rewrites Search Algorithm
On Thursday, Google had a press event to announce new changes they have been working on in search, as well discuss the progression over the 15 years of their existence.
Part of that was to announce that they have rewrote their search algorithm for the first time in about twelve-years. They call it Hummingbird.

Hummingbird is just what they code-named the rewrite. The algorithm itself is almost the same, but I assume cleaned up and rewritten to be faster and more accurate. 

Google said they rolled it out about a month ago, according to Danny Sullivan, "Google started using Hummingbird about a month ago, it said. Google only announced the change today."
I suspect that is what we've been seeing with the 9/12, 9/4 and 8/24 possible updates that Google would not confirm. Of course, I can be wrong and it can be unrelated but it does seem very suspicious that Google would not give me anything on the record and then this was announced, overlapping those three updates.

I scanned all the forum threads on the topic and learned nothing more than what Danny had in his article. I did however spot one thread at Hacker News where Google's Ryan Moulton is taking feedback on bad example search results.

The main thing, the Hummingbird algorithm is major but Google did not want or expect anyone to notice it. I think we did notice it back earlier this month and/or late last month. Google will not confirm that. If you think you noticed something this weekend, it is not Hummingbird directly related.

Author: Barry Schwartz

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