Google Algorithm Update Around August 8th 2014

Google Algorithm Update Around August 8th 2014 I am seeing significant signs of a real Google update both in terms of summer/weekend forum chatter at WebmasterWorld, via the automated tracking tools and via emails sent to me with screen shots. The update seems to have around August 9th or 8th and has continued through the weekend. Here are some quotes from the Webmaster World thread: I concur with the above observations. Seeing a huge drop...

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SEO: Harder To Know If Human Error Caused Ranking Issues Vs Algorithms

SEO: Harder To Know If Human Error Caused Ranking Issues Vs Algorithms When it comes to ranking issues in Google, there are two main reasons why your rankings can drop. The first is you made a technical mistake on your own site, such as blocking Google from crawling you. The second is Google decided through algorithms or manual actions that your site shouldn't rank as well anymore. A WebmasterWorld thread has SEOs debating if it is harder to...

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My Site Is Boring. How Do I Get Links?

My Site Is Boring. How Do I Get Links? The topic of getting links to boring web sites or web sites that compete with dozens or hundreds of other web sites is not new. If you sell widgets and there are hundreds of other sites that sell the same widgets, then how do you drive up interest to get people to link to your site? A WebmasterWorld thread has one person even asking if doing link bait type of stories will change the topicality of his...

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Google Panda 4.0 Now Rolling Out; A New Panda Algorithm

Google Panda 4.0 Now Rolling Out; A New Panda Algorithm Last night was pretty wild, with Google confirming an update over the weekend targeting spammy queries and also Google's Matt Cutts posting on Twitter that Panda 4.0 was released. This is a new Panda algorithm, not a refresh that we've seen almost monthly but enough for Google to name this 4.0, which means a new algorithm update to it. Google's Matt Cutts told us at Search Engine Land...

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Google Preparing Large Update? Shifts On May 2nd & 7th

Google Preparing Large Update? Shifts On May 2nd & 7th I mentioned there was some chatter about a Google update on May 2nd but now we are seeing even more chatter and signs of flux in the Google search results on May 7th. These signs of shifts in rankings, spikes in crawl rates, often, but not always, are early warning signs of a major Google update happening in the near future. Here are flux/volatility charts from MozCast, SERPS.com, SearchMetrics...

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Google's Matt Cutts: Anticipate The Query To Better Control Titles In Google

Google's Matt Cutts: Anticipate The Query To Better Control Titles In Google Google's Matt Cutts posted a video explaining why and when Google may use something other than your title tag for the search results title snippet. MattCutts suggested that it is best for your to try to anticipate what theuser will search for when crafting your title tags. When you do that and then when it matches the query, then Google will likely show your title tag....

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Schema.org Actions: What Is It?

Schema.org Actions: What Is It? On Friday, I reported at Search Engine Land that Schema.org launched Actions, a new markup that describes actions that have taken place in the past [past actions] or could take place in the future [potential actions]. Note, Schema.org is the centralized organization backed by Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines, for standardizing markup that mostly search engines use to better understand text and content...

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75% Of SEOs Want Yahoo To Return To Search

75% Of SEOs Want Yahoo To Return To Search A couple months ago new rumors surfaced around Yahoo making a return to search. With those rumors, we asked you guys if you think Yahoo should indeed make those efforts or give up now? With over 200 responses on our poll I wanted to tell you that the majority would like to see Yahoo return to search 75% of you said yes, Yahoo should get back into search. Only 18% said no, they should not and 7%...

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Google's Cutts On Big SEO Myths Are...

Google's Cutts On Big SEO Myths Are... Google's Matt Cutts released a video on the topic of some of the largest SEO myths out today. He broke it down into two categories: (1) Ads and their influence on organic results. (2) Quick fixes to break Google's algorithm. On the ads from, Matt Cutts said there are two myths. (1) If you buy ads, your organic rankings will go higher. (2) If you don't buy ads, your rankings will go higher. He also...

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Google Panda Refresh Or Softer Panda Update?

Google Panda Refresh Or Softer Panda Update? Let me start off by saying that I normally would wait another 24 hours before posting this because the chatter is so new, but I will be offline tomorrow and the day after and I am going with what I see now. It seems, based on the very very early chatter that a Panda refresh started late last night or this morning. Some are asking if it is that version two of the softer Panda update that Google's...

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Matt Cutts: PageRank Not Popularity, Topical PageRank Helps & Authority On Subjects Coming

Matt Cutts: PageRank Not Popularity, Topical PageRank Helps & Authority On Subjects Coming In yesterday's video from Google's Matt Cutts, Matt summarized three topics that aren't necessarily new but often confused by folks in the webmaster and SEO community. In short, he said: (1) PageRank is not a measure of popularity (2) Topical PageRank may help determine if a specific site is a good match for a specific query (3) Google has algorithm...

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Google's Matt Cutts On Telling If Your Site Was Hit By Algorithm

Google's Matt Cutts On Telling If Your Site Was Hit By Algorithm The truth is, for an experienced SEO, this video sheds nothing new about the question on determining if your site was hit by an algorithm or not. In short, the best way to tell if you were hit by a Google algorithm such as Panda or Penguin, is to see your analytics and see if you had a major dive in traffic from Google on a specific day. If so, then write down that date, go to...

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Lots Of Google Search Activity: Likely Manual Vs. Algorithmic

Lots Of Google Search Activity: Likely Manual Vs. Algorithmic The ongoing Webmaster World thread that tracks Google activity has webmasters and SEOs asking if there are algorithmic updates going on, either Panda or Penguin. I can say, Google has not told us about any update but there has been a heck of a lot of penalties, manual actions and widespread targets on the manual side that happened over the past couple weeks. For example, this week,...

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Google's Matt Cutts: New Softer Panda Update Coming Soon

Google's Matt Cutts: New Softer Panda Update Coming Soon At SMX West Matt Cutts of Google announced they are actively working on the "next generation" Panda update that will "soften" the algorithm. Matt specifically said this is aimed at helping small businesses that may be impacted by the Panda algorithm. There was no date given on its release but he made it clear, this will be a bigger update that will make Panda less of an impact on certain...

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Google: Keep URL Length Shorter Than 2,000 Characters

Google: Keep URL Length Shorter Than 2,000 Characters SEOs obsess about the smallest things, even how long is too long for a URL. A Google Webmaster Help thread has SEOs and webmasters asking how long can they go for a URL. Google actually answered the question. John Mueller of Google said, while there is "no theoretical length limit" and they can go forever, Google does recommend you keep it under 2,000 characters. Google's John Mueller...

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Got A Google Penalty? Should You Start A New Site?

Got A Google Penalty? Should You Start A New Site? As more and more Google penalties become more transparent, recovering from them seems to get harder. Even when you do recover, the rankings don't always return. In a recent column by Eric Ward named When The Best SEO Move Is To Kill The Site where he concluded that "in almost two-thirds of the cases I advised that the best move was to kill the site." This is when it comes to unnatural link penalties...

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Ex-Googlers Explain Why They Won't Give Up The Secrets To Ranking In Google

Ex-Googlers Explain Why They Won't Give Up The Secrets To Ranking In Google I spotted a thread at Black Hat World asking why have we not seen a case where a former Google employee who worked in search quality sell their knowledge or publish the secret sauce on what it would take to rank well quickly and get rich fast. Or why haven't these former Googlers done it for themselves, exploit their knowledge to rank well in Google and make a quick buck? I...

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Google's Matt Cutts: Content Clarity Over Technical Content

Google's Matt Cutts: Content Clarity Over Technical Content There is an excellent video from Google's Matt Cutts on the question Should I focus on clarity or jargon when writing content? The short answer is focus on clarity over jargon. Matt explains that in most cases, having content that most people understand is way more important that having all the scientific and technical jargon about the topic you are covering. If you can't explain the...

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Google's Matt Cutts Stops By WebmasterWorld After Three Years Of Silence

Google's Matt Cutts Stops By WebmasterWorld After Three Years Of Silence The last time Matt Cutts of Google posted something at WebmasterWorld was over three years ago on January 4, 2011. He broke his silence there yesterday posting in a private member-only WebmasterWorld thread. Why does this matter? I am not sure but he was the infamous GoogleGuy at WebmasterWorld for years and years. Not posting there, which was like a home to Cutts, for...

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Signs Of More Google Algorithm Updates Early This Week

Signs Of More Google Algorithm Updates Early This Week We reported about a possible Google update around February 13th and I do believe there was something rather large on that date - but now there is more chatter about a possible update early this week, this past Sunday and Monday at Google. The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has a lot of discussion from webmasters about a possible update. Here are some recent comments: Has anybody noticed a...

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Google February Update: Possibly A Google Panda Refresh?

Google February Update: Possibly A Google Panda Refresh? There is a tremendous amount of chatter going on about Google updating over the past couple days or so at WebmasterWorld. On February 6th we had the Page Layout algorithm update but that didn't cause much of a fuss in the SEO forums. But something over the past couple days is. Moderator, Travelin Cat, said: I'm following about 25 client sites and all but 3 had a huge jump in traffic on...

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Google's Page Layout Algorithm Updated For Third Time

Google's Page Layout Algorithm Updated For Third Time Yesterday, Google's Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that they have pushed out a refresh to the Google Page Layout algorithm on or around February 6th. He did not specify how much this impacted the search results but based on my analysis of the SEO community, it had a very small impact on most SEOs. This would be the third update to the page layout algorithm. Since it is just a refresh, it...

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Is Google Misleading Us? If So, How?

Is Google Misleading Us? If So, How? You've all seen it, parking signs that are so confusing that sometimes you wonder, is the local government trying to mislead you... Webmasters are asking themselves the same questions about Google. With all the blog posts, videos, guidelines, is Google setting SEOs and webmasters up for disaster one way or another? Last year, we asked you if you felt Google was lying to you and only 10% said no. The rest,...

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Google To Bring It On German Link Spammers

Google To Bring It On German Link Spammers  Yesterday, Google posted a stern warning on the German Google Webmaster blog telling webmasters that you will be penalized for unnatural links. Matt Cutts then Tweeted the same warning saying "A reminder (in German) that paid links that pass PageRank violate our guidelines." This comes the week after Google took action on a French link network, where Matt also dropped a hint on German link networks...

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Google Sends Manual Actions For Rich Snippet Spam & Spammy Structured Markup

Google Sends Manual Actions For Rich Snippet Spam & Spammy Structured Markup Rich snippet spam has been an issue since rich snippets came out and eventually added a report rich snippet spam tool. Then Google dropped the amount of rich snippets showing in the search results recently. It seems like Google is now sending out notifications to those who have been spammy with their rich snippets. One webmaster posted a notification he received in...

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DMOZ Drops Over 1 Million Sites From Directory?

DMOZ Drops Over 1 Million Sites From Directory? Did you notice that DMOZ, one of the oldest and largest human crafted web directories, has removed over 1 million sites and 10,000 editors from their directory? A DigitalPoint Forum thread first noticed it. If you look at the live site now, you will see 4,261,763 sites, 89,252 editors and over 1,019,865 categories in the footer. But if you go to the Way Back Machine archive you will see 5,310,345...

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Can You Rank In Google Without Content?

Can You Rank In Google Without Content? A WebmasterWorld thread has a webmaster who has a site that doesn't have any real content. It is basically statistical downloads and specifications downloadable as PDFs or Zip files. Can you rank web pages with no content at all in Google? A good example of a page that ranks without having the exact words on it is the Adobe Reader page which ranks for [click here]. But what about a page with almost...

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Google's Matt Cutts On When Old Sites No Longer Rank Well

Google's Matt Cutts On When Old Sites No Longer Rank Well Yesterday, Matt Cutts of Google released another video, this one answering why an old site that always ranked well, no longer ranks as well these days. The question posed was, "How can an older site maintain its ranking over time?" Matt said that some old sites that have been ranking well for years don't change anything. They leave the 15-year-old template, they don't add any new features...

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Hold Your SEO Client Hostage With Negative SEO Threats

Hold Your SEO Client Hostage With Negative SEO Threats A WebmasterWorld thread has a story of a webmaster who received a phone call from someone with an Indian accent threatening to use negative SEO on their site if they don't pay up. A form of search pirates, if you will. This is what the webmaster's client said: So I had a client phone me today and say he had a call from a guy with an Indian accent who told him that he will destroy his...

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Google's Matt Cutts: We Don't Have Different Algorithms For Different Ranking Positions

Google's Matt Cutts: We Don't Have Different Algorithms For Different Ranking Positions Google's Matt Cutts released a video yesterday answering the question; does Google have algorithms for different positions in the search results. So does position one through three use one ranking algorithm, position four through six use another and so on. The answer is no, at least with the web organic search results. Of course the ads have different algorithms,...

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Google: Your Rankings Dropped Because Of Links, Not Hummingbird

Google: Your Rankings Dropped Because Of Links, Not Hummingbird A Google Webmaster Help thread has an office furniture site complaining that his Google rankings dropped after the Hummingbird update was pushed out. Of course, you and I know that sounds a bit too much. Being that we do not know the exact rollout and dates of the Hummingbird algorithm. But it is nice to see Google representatives saying so too. Zineb Ait Bahajji from Google said...

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Google On What To Do If You Can't Have 100% Unique Content

Google On What To Do If You Can't Have 100% Unique Content Google has said time to time that having some unique content, even if it is a few sentences of unique content may be enough. So when Gary Illyes from Google responded to a thread at Google Webmaster Help - his response stood out. He wrote, "You want to keep in mind that the users (and also our algorithms) prefer unique and compelling content." But if you can't, then what? Gary wrote...

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Social Optimization: Your Content Or Yourself?

Social Optimization: Your Content Or Yourself? There is an interesting conversation going on at Cre8asite Forums about your clients participating in social networks and the importance of that. The given is that social is growing in importance, as it related to search rankings either indirectly and in the future, directly. The bigger question in the thread is, do you yourself need to be active in social or does your content need to be socially...

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Google: Can't Crawl Your Robots.txt Then We Stop Crawling Your Site

Google: Can't Crawl Your Robots.txt Then We Stop Crawling Your Site Did you know that if Google cannot crawl your robots.txt file, that it will stop crawling your whole site? This doesn't mean you need to have a robots.txt file, you can simply not have one. But if you do have one and Google knows you do and it cannot access it, then Google will stop crawling your site. Google's Eric Kuan said this in a Google Webmaster Help thread. He wrote: If...

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