Posted by JR in Google, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization
Well looks like Google is at it again, making changes to their algorithm, shaking things up and causing webmasters to pull their hair out. Two things have happened in the last few weeks, Google launched the Caffeine update which they have been working on for some time and also there is what is being called the Mayday update. (By the way, this is a typical action on the part of Google, they usually make major tweaks in the summer time, around May and June). These are two very distinct actions on the part of Google.
Caffeine
Caffeine has nothing to do with ranking, it is just the method in which data is being stored, retrieved from keyword searches and then displayed in SERPS.
Mayday
Mayday IS about ranking and is a search quality algorithm change, ( not manual) launched by the Google Search Quality team and impacts long tail traffic referrals that DOES change how sites are ranked in SERPS.
Basically if your long tail traffic referrals fell heavily in the SERPS, Google is telling you your site sucks….Thanks Google, we love you too!
Last week at Google I/O, Matt Cutts said – ”this is an algorithmic change in Google, looking for higher quality sites to surface for long tail queries. It went through vigorous testing and isn’t going to be rolled back.”
Check out the video regarding Mayday by Matt Cutts
MAYDAY and GETTING SENT TO THE GOOGLE BLACK HOLE
Mayday has significantly impacted long tail keyword searches and therefore, inner pages as opposed to having a widespread affect on home pages and many have lost their precious rankings for these queries in SERPS.
There has also been a lot of buzz about the especially negative affects of Mayday on e-commerce sites ( that link offers some real useable insight into the e-commerce issues with Mayday, thanks to Link Builder) losing rankings and SERP placements that have significantly impacted their earnings and bottom line.
Mayday Impacts
1. Pages in long tail keyword searches that do not have healthy link profiles and so do not hold enough “authority” in the eyes of Google
2. Thin pages, like product pages without any other significant added value
3. Pages that are several clicks away from the home page, hence ineffective heirarchy and overall site navigation
4. New and much stricter guidelines have been set by Google as to what qualifies as an “authority” and “useful” site for a particular search query and only those sites that do will now rank for those terms.
5. Likely most thin affiliate sites pages went down hard.
6. Evidently the long tail pages that got hit were ones without significant amounts of written original content, hence the product pages of ecommerce sites, that only had product listings.
7. The long tail search referrals were tweaked to impact sites lacking authority in Google’s eyes.
8. This is not a manual penalty – purely algorithmic
9. Metrics measuring the “quality” and “authority” of sites has been tweaked, tested and launched and this is a permanent change.
10. Has nothing to do with Caffeine
Now What?
Likely many of you have been impacted by this, and if you haven’t yet done so, I suggest you go and check your sites rankings and see what’s going on.
Most Important
I have a lot of sites, and a few were affected by Mayday, which of course means loss of traffic, and therefore money. For me, I see one common denominator, the sites that suffered were not authority sites in the eyes of Google, which I already knew but it has never been a problem before. And, good quality links to those sites were few and far between.
LEARN MORE WITH PART 2 - How To Create and Rank Inner Website Pages Post Mayday
More Useful Stuff on Mayday
Mayday Thread at Webmaster World Forum – Good discussion going on here with all the techies and veteran webmasters who have lived through many Google shake ups.
Why Google is Costing Some Sites
Was the Google Update a Complete Failure?
SEO Moz – Google Mayday Update and What it Means For You
How did you guys do? Anyone lost rankings? What are you doing about it?
Posted by JR in Google, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Website Tools
Google announced on Friday that they have officially incorporated site speed into their algorithm as a factor in rankings, see their blog post about it at Google Rankings and Site Speed, Matt Cutts elaborates more on this issue here.
All in all, site speed should always be our concern since slow loading pages drive visitors away, but now that it is definitely going to affect rankings we really need to check and monitor our site speed to be sure that they are at their optimal speed. While Google does confirm that site speed is not as important as the relevance of a page or other factors for rankings and that all in all they surmise that less than 1% of rankings will be affected by this you still ought to check your sites to make sure that they are loading quickly, again mainly for the traffic that comes through.
It’s a fact that website speed can have a big impact on conversions and overall site ROI, all other factors being equal simply because you keep visitors longer on your site. Most Internet users are instant gratification junkies, they want to zip through pages, and not wait around while your site is trying to load. And statistics show that visitors tend to stay on a site longer when it loads quickly and overall provides them with optimal performance.
Tools To Check Website Speed
If you don’t use Firefox and other tools
More In Depth Tools for Site Speed and General Site Performance
Improved Page Speed for WordPress Blogs
If you are like me and other bloggers and those of us that use WordPress to build money sites or any kind of small niche sites then please check out WP Super Cache plugin. Often times blogs get over loaded with all those cool plugins, badges, and social bookmark and Twitter submission buttons we love to use and they can really affect WordPress blog speed and load times. WP Super Cache works great to improve the speed of blogs no matter how many frills you have.
Posted by JR in Google, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization
Looks like Google has done another page rank update, so check all your sites. Looks like this PR update is pretty accurate at least for my sites. Most of my new ones went from 0 to 1 and a couple from 2 to 3. This blog still remains a 0, since it went from PR3 to 0 several months ago, not sure why, but as long as it still ranks for many keywords and is getting new subscribers I don’t much care.
Though there had been rumors that Google will be doing away with Page Rank all together, and Google has said that PR matters very little in the grand scheme of things, looks like it is still active and being updated, usually at 3 month intervals.
Again, as always I am not too concerned with PR as ranking is more important and many times you will see PR0 sites outrank PR1+ sites. For those who want to sell advertising on their sites PR is still a factor as advertisers look for that as one indicator of quality and so a higher PR can yield higher prices for ad space.
So, how did you guys do in this PR update?
Posted by JR in Google, Odds and Ends
Well looks like the last Google PR update of 2009 is taking place right now or may all ready be finished. Once again we get to stroke our egos, at least hopefully.
I have personally seen some weird things going on in the last 6 months with the updates, unexpected time frames with updates and mass fluctuations in PR.
This update several of my sites went up 1 level and several went back down to where they were in PR before the last update, which makes sense since the last update did not seem accurate at all.
Again, PR means nothing for rankings and it is just something we all have to check to make ourselves feel good, but if you lost PR or did not gain any at all then don’t worry about, be more concerned with SERP rankings.
Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!
I wanted to wish everyone a very happy new year and I hope that you are all ready to work hard and make some serious money online in 2010!!!!!!! I know I am
.
It’s been a great year for me and I am ready to make 2010 even better. Remember to be vigilant in setting goals for your online business and following through.
Don’t get too caught up in information to where it takes you off track and makes you stagnant, ACTION IS THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE!!!!!!!
See you all in 2010 and once again thank you so much for all the support and best of luck in all your 2010 endeavors!
Posted by JR in Google, Internet Marketing
Another Google toolbar page rank update has just completed. It’s funny that this follows so soon after Google made a special announcement on their blog advising webmasters to stop obsessing about PR and how they deemed it so unimportant that they removed the PR info from Google Webmaster Tools Dashboards.
Yet they have done another update and while we all know that PR has little to do with ranking, which is what ultimately matters most, it is still cool to check out these PR updates. Several of my newer sites went to PR3 which was nice, though not sure how deserved, but I’ll take it!
When I did some research as to how the toolbar PR increases compare with rankings I found no cause and affect, the sites still rank the same even when they jumped from PR1 to PR2.
So how did you guys do in the PR update? Anybody lose PR, this seems to be going around?
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