WTF Is Google doing lately?

It *is* a good idea to look at your load speed; Google has added that to the algorithm, but I don't believe it's at the root of what's going on now. Speed is an important factor - more for usability than for anything, but it's not going to trump content.

None of the 30 or so sites I manage have experienced any change recently. Not in March or May either. Is it possible that the changes to the algorithm have to do with filtering out attempts to manipulate PR or SERPs? Google may be getting better at detecting spam patterns.

Now, I am not saying anyone is spamming -- though clearly lots of people are. . But Google has a very clear point of view on anything we do that is intended to manipulate SERPs.

I don't think this link, http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1782322, is entirely off base. I don't think SEO is dead, but I think spammy SEO practices are on Google's radar. I think a lot of off site optimization techniques are going to be less effective as Google tweaks the algorithm to target those who are publishing lower quality articles, commenting on blogs and other techniques that Google deems to be attempts to manipulate its index.

I have a sneaky feeling Caffeine is rolled out in the US. And I do think that Caffeine is all about making it easier for Google to change the algorithm to target spam.

I do think Social Media is coming more and more into play. I suspect Google has added user behavior to the 200+ ranking factors; it certainly seems to have done so for PageRank. I think Google is impressed by a steady stream of traffic to a site from Twitter or Facebook. And even if they aren't, I am. When you can command attention, you are one very important step closer to a sale.

 

i have no idea what has been going on with google...they are banning adwords accounts with no explanation, quality scores are dropping and bid prices are rising

 

Something definately is off with google these days. Traffic and rankings have dropped hard for some of my site, while other sites ( wich i didnt promote at all) are ranking top 3 all of a sudden.
I have a feeling that they are using an old database or something like that. When i look at one of my sites in a heavy competitive niche i see a drop back from a consistent rank #2 to ranking #18 now

All of a sudden sites with low inbound link count, low mozrank/moztrust/domain authority are ranking higher in Google's results.
Something definately is off with google, been around long enough to see that.. but what.. lets hope its a teporarily thing

 

Here's something I read which actually makes sense.

"May 2010 Update - There is clear evidence that over-optimising a single keyword through adding too many backlinks and site-wide links can result in triggering a Google filter whereby the recipient page of these links no longer ranks in the organic SERP for the keyword being optimised."

 

I'm not entirely sure what is going on at this stage but the personal search results for Google stink right now. I can't find things I could find at the end of 2009 and that I'd found for years.

I was trying to read about bluefin tuna the other day and particular studies. The very studies I bookmarked a few months ago that Google had shown for years are gone, replaced by recipes. The same goes for searches I've done to find local landscapers. I instead get pages of fertilizer information for New Zealand when I'm in New England. It's just bizzare, it appears in an attempt to devalue keywords in the meta title they really messed up the overall value of pages.

Nevermind on the business end. I have no idea what they're up to but I know that even the adwords as of late aren't really relevant.

 

Google is always updating their search results

 

This happened to me too, but not recently. I think is about two months ago.
My traffic from google organic search dropped 50%.

Also, when I searched for site:mydomain.com, my indexed pages get decreased by a lot.
Now is catching up in a very slow pace.

I hope Google knows what they are doing and this is not some sorta bugs.

 

I can confirm that this happened to my some sites also. For example two main keywords of one of my site is drooped form page 1 to page 5. By further analysis I found that the drop in both keywords are same that is -55. I also found the same drop in other sites also. The interesting thing is that this is mostly happen to the home pages. All these drops I found on last Monday

We do a lots of submission for home pages and inner pages also. So it could not be due to some bad links because in that case the effect should be on all the pages of site.

 

I have doubts they know what they're doing, is a total mess for many areas/niches/searches
They are in a big mess and have no idea what they're doing..spam is all over the search results lately

 

I also notice that about for every 1 out 3 searches I run for anything personal / professional, a result on page 1 or 2 will have the .nl domain and will be a malware cited by both Norton and FF. I mean hell it's even flagged as Malware/Phising by Firefox browser. I think the shits hit the fan over there.

 

I've noticed this happening with my sites as well, however since the weekenbd they have picked up again. Anyone else had a recent boost?

 

no, nothing since 2 June

 

I have quality sites with at least 50 pages of content that is 100% unique and it has been hit as well.

My newer sites were affected, whereas my older sites were not.

This is so strange, this is NOT a Google dance because normally my sites would dance up and down independently, but I have not seen anything like this on a global scale.

 

My SERPs dropped like crazy on the 3rd of June, but now they have jumped up a little bit.

So If I lost 50 SERPs, it jumped up by 25!

So there is something very, very strange.

 

They are now forcing an integrated twitter search at the bottom to show how real-time their search is. 3 ridiculous tweets were post at the bottom of my G search page, with all the default settings, a couple of minutes ago. WTF do I care if Bobby-Joe in the backwoods tweets that he's cutting his grass, when I'm searching for a Lawn Mower? Have these guys lost their mind?

 

funny stuff, apparently they did

 

no changes seen here. Still holding very strong and some sites went up nicely.

 

From what I have seen here an other forums the SERPs drops seem to be a combination of the following

1. Newer sites were hit harder than older sites.
2. Made for advertising sites (MFA) were hit hard.
3. Site that had backlinks to just the homepage and/or for a single keyword were hit hard.
4. Sites that targeted exact keyword domains were hit hard. (most of these were in item #2)

 

I agree all the way and pisses me off. It has been discussed in the past and this search engine giant has too much power over the internet.

Also, this whole twitter integration has nothing to do with bringing quality results. There's so many twitter accounts and so much garbage posted every day.

How will google decide if a tweet is garbage or not, the same as you im not interested to know what someone did today in his garden when im searching for something else specific.

 

Google has been all over the place recently but Matt Cutts recently revealed that they have changed their algorithm, this could explain it