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Google Algorithm Update Feb 2014?

by Jeff Lenney
16 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey Guys

A SEO friend of mine pointed out that traffic and impressions have gone down signifigantly the past 4 days for ALL of his sites, both personal and for clients.

I checked myself and saw the same thing in Google Webmaster tools. My impressions and clicks have gone down by about 1/3rd - and i'm seeing the EXACT same pattern for all sites (both personal, clients, and even friends I dont work on) in my Webmaster tools accounts.

I wasn't able to find anything on google about this OR matt cutts twitter feed.

Anybody noticing the same thing, and if so - have you heard anything about it?

Thanks!

Jeff
#2014 #algorithm #feb #google #update
  • Profile picture of the author Moneymaker2012
    Sorry to hear about that but i think google caught some thing wrong in all of these sites and kicked them down i am not sure but i didn't hear about this before.
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  • Profile picture of the author stolf
    Originally Posted by eljeffe77 View Post

    Hey Guys

    A SEO friend of mine pointed out that traffic and impressions have gone down signifigantly the past 4 days for ALL of his sites, both personal and for clients.

    I checked myself and saw the same thing in Google Webmaster tools. My impressions and clicks have gone down by about 1/3rd - and i'm seeing the EXACT same pattern for all sites (both personal, clients, and even friends I dont work on) in my Webmaster tools accounts.

    I wasn't able to find anything on google about this OR matt cutts twitter feed.

    Anybody noticing the same thing, and if so - have you heard anything about it?

    Thanks!

    Jeff
    Hello Jeff,

    Im seeing the same thing on all my sites, dont know whats happend, havent heard anything about any updates.

    The funny thing is my clicks and traffic is the same as usual.Weird..
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      There was a page layout algo update meant to hit sites with too much ads over the fold

      the layout algo is explained here (two years ago)

      Page layout algorithm improvement - Inside Search

      again the update to this was recent - announced on Cutts twitter page a few hours ago
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      • Profile picture of the author Steve Waller
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        There was a page layout algo update meant to hit sites with too much ads over the fold

        the layout algo is explained here (two years ago)

        Page layout algorithm improvement - Inside Search

        again the update to this was recent - announced on Cutts twitter page a few hours ago
        Good spot, thanks for the heads up.

        Can't say I've been affected though.
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        • Profile picture of the author stolf
          It said it affects less then 1% of sites....hmm I have websites without any ads what so ever, but they still got affected if im looking at impessions in webmaster tools.

          My sites rank just fine and traffic is actually up this month, so i I dont know whats going on.
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          • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
            Originally Posted by stolf View Post

            It said it affects less then 1% of sites....hmm I have websites without any ads what so ever, but they still got affected if im looking at impessions in webmaster tools.
            .
            my suspicion is that Google ha no foolproof way of determining what an ad is.

            Too much images or too much small snippets (rather than solid paragraphs) with links might activate the algo.

            Lets face it. If you are making significant ad income google would rather you not rank and pay for adsense instead. Pure content only sites like Wikipedia are what they would and do prefer for organic serps
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            • Profile picture of the author jxam69
              Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

              my suspicion is that Google ha no foolproof way of determining what an ad is.
              This does concern me.

              I know a number of websites that use Ad Servers like DFP and OpenX to do split testing on things like calls to action.

              These aren't advertisements, but the worry is that a naive algo would count them as ads just because they're using the same technology used to serve ads.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Google contradicts itself on the above the fold subject.

    There's Google Labs browser tool, and there's Adsense above the fold, which I'm sure is also used for Adwords.

    My advice is don't worry about above the fold & just use common sense. Even when I ran Adsense on multiple sites I always loaded an ad at the very top of the page, still ranked pages in Google SERPs.

    The key is to narrow down your best converting ads & dump the rest. Those guys that say max out the number of ads per page are clowns, including Adsense emails recommending to max out ads. BTW, top/center of a web page is usually a hot spot for CTRs.

    Adsense sends out those emails recommending to max out ads, while Google SERPs says it's spammy, which a page loaded with ads is spammy.

    Do this, but don't do it. - Google
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    • Profile picture of the author jxam69
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Those guys that say max out the number of ads per page are clowns
      My company does this - and I don't think we are clowns.

      We have a special arrangement with Google which theoretically allows us to show an infinite number of Adsense units per page (with a minimum amount of vertical space in between them).

      We weren't hit by this update - it's pretty clear they are looking primarily at the number of ads at the top of the page which can interfere with the actual content a visitor sees upon landing.

      But you're point about being wary of advice given by Adsense is a good one - for a long time the Adsense staff were giving advice which was clearly contrary to the advice coming from their search quality and web trends staff.
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by jxam69 View Post

        We have a special arrangement with Google
        The majority of the web isn't all that special.


        Originally Posted by jxam69 View Post

        But you're point about being wary of advice given by Adsense is a good one - for a long time the Adsense staff were giving advice which was clearly contrary to the advice coming from their search quality and web trends staff.
        True, Google products don't seem to sync with each other when giving out on-page recommendations. I read their emails but that's about all.
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        • Profile picture of the author jxam69
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          True, Google products don't seem to sync with each other when giving out on-page recommendations.
          Actually, I like the fact that the Chinese Walls they claim to have between search quality and advertising appear to be real.
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by jxam69 View Post

            Actually, I like the fact that the Chinese Walls they claim to have between search quality and advertising appear to be real.
            That's a good point I guess & a proven point with the above the fold subject.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeff Lenney
    Thanks for the updates Mike & Yukon - guess i should space my text together into paragraphs more instead of making it easier to read by spacing it out a bit lol

    edit: Strange though,I'm seeing this on literally ALL websites in every webmaster tools account I've got access to - many are ecommerce sites that don't have a single ad, period.
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  • Profile picture of the author PurpleYogi
    Originally Posted by eljeffe77 View Post

    Hey Guys

    A SEO friend of mine pointed out that traffic and impressions have gone down signifigantly the past 4 days for ALL of his sites, both personal and for clients.

    I checked myself and saw the same thing in Google Webmaster tools. My impressions and clicks have gone down by about 1/3rd - and i'm seeing the EXACT same pattern for all sites (both personal, clients, and even friends I dont work on) in my Webmaster tools accounts.

    I wasn't able to find anything on google about this OR matt cutts twitter feed.

    Anybody noticing the same thing, and if so - have you heard anything about it?

    Thanks!

    Jeff
    That happened to me (started FEb 2nd) my site is 4 weeks old and was ranking well like p2 for very competit. SEO keywords in a city, and then all of them got like slapped back to like from to like #80 result. Not just slight fluctuation. Is it possible for a competitor to do this somehow? I'm new at SEO
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    • Profile picture of the author PurpleYogi
      REading responses I just want to add that I don't have ads on my site at all!
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Paule
    I got hit, my sites got hit and traffic has dropped significantly. But I didn't have any ads above the fold . . . it does not make sense to me

    If its all about ads, does it mean that if one got rid of adsense, then one would possibly rank again?
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