Venice. Penguin. Panda. Are Google’s changes leaving you behind?

Google makes about 500 changes a year to its search algorithm. That’s a lot. And, as a result, SEO advice gets out of date very quickly. Many of the SEO tips you’ll read on the internet are either dated or, worse, just plain wrong. So, here are seven of the most recent, significant changes to Google’s search results and how they affect you.

1. Venice

For many years, Google has personalized its results based on geography.
In February 2012, with its Venice update, Google changed the way it presents its results, so that results for local businesses are now pulled into its main results page.
As you can see here, Google can tell your location from your computer’s IP address.

So, even when I’m not logged into my Google account, a search for family lawyer near my house reveals these local results:

As you’d expect, the results Google presents are different in different countries. And for many keywords you’ll see radical changes from one town or city to the next.

What does this mean for you?

Every site offering a service that’s delivered locally - so, say a plumber, hairdresser or a retail chain with stores across the country - needs to have a geographical SEO plan. If you’re running a local business, now’s the time to target local keywords.
And if you operate in multiple countries, it’s essential Google sees you as a local listing.
Here’s how to check Google in different geographies. To see results in a different country, simply add /ncr after the version of Google you’d like to use. For example, you’d use Google.ie/ncr to see Irish results if you’re based outside Eire. Here’s a list of other English-speaking Google results pages:

Using these URLs, you’ll be able to see Google’s listings for other countries.
If you’d like to see results from a different location within your country, just change your search settings here:

You’ll then be able to see Google’s results from your chosen location.

2. Penguin

In 2012, Google’s Penguin update penalized sites that it considered over-optimized. It focused on sites that practiced keyword stuffing and link spamming.
Here’s an example of keyword stuffing:

It doesn’t look great, does it? You can see why Google wants to stop people doing it.

What does this mean for you?

Google’s changes often create a lot of unnecessary panic. Yet, you only need worry about the Penguin update if you’ve been using spammy methods to promote your site, or if you’ve received links from spammy sites.

3. Google’s Panda update

Throughout the past couple of years Google has been cracking down on spammers who have tried to game its algorithm.
Google’s Panda update focused on improving the quality, uniqueness and accessibility of the content it presents.
The majority (60%+) of your content needs to be unique. And it needs to be accessible. So don’t include too many ads at the top of the page (above the fold).
If your site is well designed, with engaging content, you needn’t worry too much about Panda.

What does this mean for you?

Google continues to refine Panda, issuing regular updates. So, if you think your site’s been affected.

4. Personalized Search (historical)

A few years back, everyone who searched with a given keyword received exactly the same results. Yet, this catch-all approach doesn’t reflect our individual needs and interests.
So search engines started personalizing their results. Nowadays, any two searchers can see very different results for the same keyword.
Google uses your search history to suggest relevant results.
So, for example, one of my favorite UK sites is moneysavingexpert.com. I’m a regular visitor. Google recognizes this, and over time, moneysavingexpert.com site has risen towards the top of my search engine results - for relevant queries.
By comparison, when I run an anonymous search (for credit card deals), the results are different. Moneysavingexpert appears lower down the results, and with fewer entries in the listings.

The credit card market can be very lucrative, so that’s a significant change. Particularly for uswitch.com, whose listing has disappeared from the first page of my personalized results.
Even when you’re signed out of Google, you may see personalized results, as Google keeps a 180-day record of whatever your browser has searched for.

What does this mean for you?

Your site is more likely to be near the top of the rankings on your computer than it is on everyone else’s. So, you may get a misleading impression of how your site is performing.
If you use Google Chrome as your internet browser, you can use its Incognito feature to check rankings for individual keywords. This will give you a more realistic impression of your site’s rankings:

5. Personalized search (social signals)

The search engines use social signals - such as Facebook 'likes' and tweets - to determine their results. Google’s own social network, Google+, provides the search engine with clues about which web pages people like and share.
These social signals affect Google’s search results in important ways.
We know that pages that are liked and shared a lot will do better in the rankings than sites that aren’t so popular. Each +1 acts like a vote. Sites with lots of votes rise up the rankings.
In addition, social signals are used to individualize the search listings. Pages that my friends have shared are likely to appear higher in my results.

As we can see, I’ve given a +1 to a Wordtracker page, which helps that page move towards the top of my search results. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that the page at the top of the listings has more +1s than any of the others.
Pages that I have visited are also likely to rise up my personal search results.

If someone becomes friends with you on Google+, their recommendations can trump all other ranking factors. A Google+ connection is a powerful connection.

What does this mean for you?

If you want your site to do well in the search rankings you need to get active in social media - particularly Google+. You should be encouraging your site’s visitors to like and share your content.
You’ll find Wordtracker’s guides to social media marketing here:
Google+
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Pinterest
You can read more about personalized search here:
http://searchengineland.com/flavors-of-google-personalized-search-139286
And you’ll find Google’s views on search personalization here:
http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=54041

6. Google Instant

Google has been trying to present results more quickly, so users get a better, faster experience.
Launched in September 2010 Google Instant introduced dynamic results that change as the searcher enters their keyword. The results update “live”.
Start typing and you’ll see one result:

Continue typing, and the results change. Google’s guessing what you’re searching for:

What does this mean for you?

Google Instant favors sites that are at the top of the search listings. Which makes it more important than ever that you establish and reinforce your site’s position as quickly as possible.

7. Google Autocomplete

Google has become much better at predicting what you’re searching for.
Google Autocomplete was launched in August 2008 And I’m sure you’ve seen that, as you start entering a keyword, Google tries to predict what you’re looking for, so you can get to the result you want more quickly.
Google will suggest the results it thinks you want to see.
You’re likely to see search queries from relevant searches that you've done in the past.

And you’ll see relevant Google+ profiles. It’s another good reason to get on Google+.

What does this mean for you?

Google’s suggestions affect how people search. You should try to be aware of what Google’s likely to be predicting.
a post from wordtracker.com
Venice. Penguin. Panda. Are Google’s changes leaving you behind? 

Google Updates and Disavowing Links – Answers to Your Questions

Do you have any pressing questions about the how the Google updates affected your sites?
If so, you will want to read the rest of this post.
I have compiled a list of the top questions from the industry, our Site-Reference readers, and clients with whom I work. Hopefully, I can put to rest some of the myths and ease your concerns about what to do or not to do with your website.
If you are an SEO consultant and you can provide our readers with answers to questions you receive from your clients, I would love it if you could share your wisdom with us in the comments!
Here goes…

Q: I have an EMD…is that why my site was downgraded?

The EMD (Exact Match Domain) update was not an all out assault on EMDs. In fact, the line is often ambiguous when determining exactly which domains are targeting keywords. A keyword can be a brand name and vice-versa. If I was searching for red shoes, I would use the keyword “red shoes”, so should the domain redshoes.com be penalized? The site sells red shoes. What if that was its brand name?
Now if your domain is howtobuyredshoesonline.com, well, now we may have a problem!
But, even then, that domain may not be enough for you to lose rankings. The EMD update removed any positive effect webmasters gained from using EMDs. So if your howtobuyredshoesonline.com domain is accompanied by a solid linking profile, stellar content and a nice following, you should be fine. The sad reality is that the people who target domains like this usually over-optimize for that keyword and other “questionable” strategies often follow such as over-optimization, spun content, low-quality links, etc.
Bottom line: If you lost rankings and you have an EMD, Google wasn’t targeting you directly. But, if the keyword in your domain is all over your linking profile and stuffed in your content, you may have a problem. Look at all of your strategies and remove any incidence of over-optimization.

Q: Was my site hit by Panda or Penguin or EMD?

The easiest way to figure this out it is to check your analytics to see when your traffic plummeted.
The updates occurred on the following dates:
December 21, 2012 – Panda refresh
November 21, 2012 – Panda refresh
November 5, 2012 – Panda update
October 9, 2012 – Page Layout Algorithm update
October 5, 2012 – Minor Penguin update
September 27, 2012 – EMD Update
September 27, 2012 – Major Panda update
July 24, 2012 – Panda update
April 24, 2012 – Penguin update – Initial launch
To see the entire list of updates, click here.
If your site lost traffic on any of these days, you may have an answer to your question as to what update affected your website.
Also, check your site for the following issues…
If you have any of the below, you were most likely hit by Panda…

• Keyword stuffing
• Poorly-written content
• Spun content
• Illegible content
• Duplicate content
• Thin content
• Links pointing to you from sites that contain poor content

If you have any of the below, you were most likely hit by Penguin…

• Over-optimized anchor text (internal and external)
• Low-quality incoming links
• Paid links
• Excessive footer links

Even if you do not know what hit your site, analyze each of these issues and make the necessary changes.
Here are some helpful articles:

1. Recovery from Google Penguin: Tips from the Trenches 
2. Guide to Google Panda and how it Affects Your Website – Part 1 
3. Guide to Google Panda and how it Affects Your Website – Part 2

If you were hit by the EMD update, it doesn’t mean you have to change your domain name. Rectify all of the other issues and you may revive your rankings. You will also have to work a little harder going forward because your EMD is not getting the positive boost it once did.

Q: If my site was downgraded a few pages, was I penalized?

Minor fluctuations are common. They could signify changing competition or shuffling of pages due to updates. Don’t panic.
Continue in your course and check your site for any potential issues. It’s also possible that some of the sites linking to you were affected by a Google update so they are no longer “voting” for your site.

Q: My site was penalized by Google and lost rankings. What should I do?

First, for the majority of people asking this question, only a handful will have actually been hit with a Google penalty.
A downgrade does not necessitate a Google penalty. Unless you received an unnatural links warning in your Google Webmaster Tools account, you most likely have not been hit with a manual penalty.

Q: I received an unnatural links warning. Should I use the Disavow Links Tool?

I suggest first trying to remove the suspect links. If you cannot remove all of the low-quality links, use the tool, but exercise caution. If you do not know how to use it, consult with an expert.
Remember that you only need the tool if you received a manual penalty. In most cases, a downgrade as a result of an update won’t necessitate the need for the Disavow Links Tool. The best practice in this case is to assess your site for the issues and rebuild to remain compliant with Google’s webmaster guidelines.

Conclusion

Hopefully I helped to answer some of your questions.
Do you have any advice to share with our community? Please discuss in the comments.
An article from site-reference.com
Google Updates and Disavowing Links – Answers to Your Questions

Recovering from Google’s Panda & Penguin – A Case Study

Flexiscreens.com is an Australia business based in Tasmania, producing flexible insect screens from premium-grade materials and delivering them world-wide. They’ve been plagiarized and targeted by copycat competitors but have always enjoyed good rankings and resoundingly good client testimonials due to exemplary products and services. The past year has been a roller coaster ride. First they were rewarded by Google, and then they were punished.

• Monthly “Visits” grew rapidly from 12,800 visits in Aug 2011 to 36,000 in Nov 2011.
• From Dec 2011 traffic declined to 17,000 visitors by May 2012.

It was the same content, basically unchanged in that time and its initial wild variations seem to predate the Panda release. In contrast, over the year, the primary copycat competitor now ranks higher than they do, despite having inferior products made from lower-grade components.
There are some peculiar aspects:

• Nov 2011 – at the peak of visitor traffic, 54% of visits were from Australia!
• By May 2012, that had dropped to 17% of visits from Australia!

The website has been hosted in Melbourne, Australia since early 2011. The site appeared in “Search: pages from Australia” so was clearly associated with the Australian dataset. The downward variation in Australian visitors was inexplicable. In June we launched into a major revision of the site, tackling each and every aspect that could conceivably be harming the site’s rankings.

Eliminating Low Quality Content
In looking at the site from a critical perspective, it appeared that the 89 glowing client references might have been an Achilles heel. These were individual posts in a Testimonials category, with a widget that selected one at random and displayed it in the page sidebar.
However, bereft of unique Titles and Descriptions, lacking headings, and with only a couple of sentences and no images, they would certainly appear of very low quality and minimal value!
By way of remedial action, these posts were inserted into a Testimonials Manager plugin, retaining the random Testimonial display in the sidebar, but with a single consolidated page instead of 89 individual posts. 301 Redirection was put in place on those posts, to the new Testimonials page.

Doorway Pages
In addition, there were a dozen or so Authorized Distributor pages, half of which contained nothing other than a State or Country variation and with a standard layout/content format. This may have appeared suspiciously like Doorway Pages, specifically referenced in Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
These were all combined into a single distributors page, with an index hyperlinked to State & Country sections, and 301 Redirection applied.

Impact of Initial Remedial Action on SERPs Results
There was a prompt response on the rankings for multiple keyword search phrases:

• flyscreen distributors – jumped up +19 places within a week to #5 on Google.com.au
• flyscreen distributors – jumped up +55 places within a week to #10 on Google.com
• fly screen distributors – jumped up +3 places within a week to #9 on Google.com

The consolidated Distributors page with its larger and unambiguous content definitely gained rapid traction in the SERPs! Unfortunately, since then those gains have been offset by further ranking losses across the board, but traffic volumes have remained relatively steady over the last few months.
Aside from the first round of remedial action on the posts and pages, we’ve also systematically reviewed page content to sharpen the focus, reduce vagueness, and eliminate other potential problems.

Google Says Be Careful about Links
Any external links were converted to NoFollow to prevent loss of link juice, or any suspicion of involvement in link spam activities.

Google Says Avoid Duplicate Content
Tags: all “tags” removed because these were not used correctly, and in the main applied to the 89 Testimonials posts. These tags consisted mostly of Australian state and/or international country, and the window type the reference related to. The consequence of that was dozens of almost identical Tag pages, all bereft of Titles and Descriptions.

Extraneous / Boilerplate Text
At some point not too long ago, the owners had inserted 3 lines of H2 and H3 headings into the top of EVERY page! That was what amounted to a Unique Selling Proposition and a Call to Action, but of course it severely diffused the effectiveness of the real first headings & first paragraphs across every page on the site. All iterations of extraneous text were replaced with an image on the bottom of each page, with a relevant link title & image alt text.
Further vague first paragraph content occurred in the About Us page which had been topped with some “warm fuzzy” content that had little to do with their Products / Manufacturing / Distribution. That extraneous content was displaced downward by something a little more useful.

Google Does Not Like Low Quality Pages
The informational pages needed to be there, but contributed little to defining the site’s genre, products or services. All non-important pages were set to NoIndex using the “Ultimate Noindex” WordPress plugin, including Login, Admin, Logout, Author, Search, Privacy, Terms etc.

• Gallery: this comprised three pages of various insect screen formats, but there was zero explanatory text. A picture may well be worth a thousand words in some circumstances, but not to a search engine! A preliminary paragraph of explanatory text was added, and the owners are preparing more to boost the intrinsic value of these pages.
• Headings: additional supportive sub-headings in H2 or H3 added on pages as appropriate.
• Images: all illustrative images had relevant explanatory Alt text inserted.
• Text Emphasis: A significant amount of non-relevant BOLD text was reverted to Regular to prevent emphasis confusion. As a general rule, Bold should only emphasize important page content, not entire paragraphs!
• Header Tags: All Titles, Descriptions & Keywords were revised to be within recommended length parameters, and made relevant to the specific page/s.

The Google Rollercoaster
Those who have engaged in close-quarter combat with Google’s relentless algorithms will understand that during the past 6 months ranking charts look like an 8.5 earthquake graph. Between Google’s tweaking, and our own remedial efforts, it was sometimes hard to ascertain if what we were doing with the website was making things better or worse! However, with the objective of “good content” firmly grasped, we persevered.
By and large, the efforts that were taken resulted in significant Google.com.au ranking improvements, sustained as Google’s algorithms have stabilized.

Local vs Global Search
For US-based readers, this is an issue that many SEO’s won’t encounter. However, if you are located elsewhere on the planet, it seems Google has drastically altered the way in which it rewards websites within their local market, at the cost of their global prominence.
Referring back to the “visitors from Australia” issue mentioned previously – as things have settled out, Google HQ, rankings across Google.com.au have improved to 2011 levels. The volume and percentage of visitors from Australia has increased back to ‘normal’ levels. Sadly, as global rankings have declined, the diversity of international visitors has faded.
Prior to 2012, Flexiscreens drew many of their clients from around the world due to good global rankings. In the past year, monthly visitor traffic (Webaliser stats) has declined from the 2011 high of 36,000 to a low of 8,700. October 2012 shows a modest improvement to 10,600 visitors.
In all other respects, rankings have clearly responded to ministrations on the website aimed at meeting Google’s Quality Guidelines. This is a family business, totally dependent on remaining prominent in global SERPs, and its fall from grace has been sudden, and painfully expensive. Recently, the company decided there was no option but to resort to Google AdWords to gain some additional exposure in targeted international markets.

The most striking aspects in the year of Panda and Penguin have been:

• the inexplicable downturn to 17% of visitors from Australia by June
• the equally inexplicable upturn in Australian visits thereafter, to 54% by October
• the total loss of international rankings

The more cynical amongst us might consider this is a Google “carrot and stick” strategy, giving local business better results in local markets, but beating those who need international exposure into the AdWords corral.

The New Normal
There does seem to be an across-the-board improvement in search relevancy. Google seems to have worked hard on ensuring that the search engine results pages give prominence to the source site of a business name or brand. As an example, a search for a Bed & Breakfast or hotel by name is now far more likely to show the specified business in first place. Previously, it would have been buried under a pile of B&B and hotel booking sites, all creaming commissions off the legitimate business owner / operator.
For that we can be grateful and I guess we can accept that we are now living in the ‘new normal.’ It’s not perfect but overall, it’s getting better!

The Bottom Line
If your business website was badly affected by Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, it is possible to recover fully from the impact. In fact, it’s usually a straightforward process of improving the website’s content, structure and functionality. Results of such improvements are invariably positive, rapid and enduring.

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Ben Kemp, Post from: SiteProNews

Panda, Penguin, and the EMD Update – What You Need to Know

Last week was a busy one for Google. The search giant ushered in a parade of algo changes starting with the announcement of the spanking new exact match domain (EMD) update on September 28. Then, a couple of days later, Google confirmed that it rolled out a major Panda algorithm update the day before the EMD. To say the tandem updates threw webmasters for a loop would be the understatement of the century.

But wait… there’s more. Head of Google webspam team Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that Google was rolling out the latest data refresh for Penguin.
Is all this action coincidental or deliberate? Any guess would be speculation at this point, but many prominent webmaster news sources have already voiced their suspicions. On that note, let’s examine each update to discern what exactly went down.

The EMD Update
When Google announced the rollout of the new EMD Update during those last days of September, it came as little surprise to most webmasters. Google alluded to the change repeatedly as far back as 2010. Some niche site builders have ignored the threats entirely, opting instead to continue tempting fate by churning out low-quality websites en masse. These sites often hinged on exact match domains to help secure their position in the SERPs.

The EMD algorithm is actually a filter through which Google sifts every website it has in its index. Now, websites with exact match domain names and low-quality content won’t cruise by Panda undetected any longer. If you are the owner of such a website, prepare yourself. The EMD algorithm will periodically refresh its data just like Panda and Penguin do now, so even if you escape the first go ’round, you may get caught in a follow-up attack down the road.


There are already rumors flying around that every owner of an exact match domain website is doomed. The folks at Search Engine Land vehemently disagree. The thought is that websites with high-quality content and an eye on good user experience will remain untouched by the algo. This remains to be seen, however – we’ll find out for sure when the dust settles after all the changes over the next few weeks. According to a post on Search Engine Land about the EMD update:
“Is that Google just favoring itself? I wouldn’t say so. After all, it didn’t wipe out:
- Cars.com for “cars”
- Usedcars.com for “used cars”
- Cheaptickets.com for “cheap tickets”
- Movies.com for “movies”
- Skylightbooks.com for “books”

Instead, EMD is more likely hitting domains like online-computer-training-schools.com, which is a made-up example but hopefully gets the point across. It’s a fairly generic name with lots of keywords in it but no real brand recognition.

Domains like this are often purchased by someone hoping that just having all the words they want to be found for (“online computer training schools”) will help them rank well. It’s true that there’s a small degree of boost to sites for having search terms in their domains with Google, in general. A very small degree.”

In theory, this amounts to five-page affiliate sites and websites made to host AdSense blocks getting the axe while all the rest of the higher-quality EMDs out there remain un-phased. Again, this is the theory. The real results will take a while to sort out.

One fact is certain, however: Google tends to roll out updates hastily and then tweak and perfect with each refresh. If you have a high-quality site with an EMD and you were hit, don’t despair. You may have a chance to come back in the SERPs as the algorithm refines further over time.

The Panda Update
It’s very interesting that Google rolled out the newest Panda algorithm update the day before the EMD algo, yet neglected to announce Panda until a few days after the announcement of EMD. If you follow Google’s changes, you’ll notice that Matt Cutts almost always announces updates directly before, or as they’re happening. This oversight seems like a deliberate move by G. If it is, the real question is, “Why the confusion?”

Some are speculating that the overlapping updates were an attempt to confuse webmasters and SEOs whose rankings would take a nosedive. It would be hard to decipher whether the hit was because of the EMD filter or due to Panda. When it’s hard to pinpoint the cause, it’s tougher to manipulate the rankings for a second time – forcing webmasters to play by the rules instead.
The Panda update is the twentieth refresh of the algorithm, and it was a big one: the change impacted roughly 2.4% of English-language search queries and it’s still baking into the index at the time of this writing. Remember, Panda deals with on-page issues such as keyword density and the overall quality of your content.

The Penguin Update
Penguin first burst on the SEO scene in late April of this year. It’s a separate algo, different from Panda in that it deals with inbound links to websites. If a website has a large number of low quality inbound links, Penguin will likely demote that site in the SERPs when the filter runs. The Penguin algorithm has only had one update so far, before the summer even began.
The latest makes the third update of Penguin, and it’s a major data refresh that will affect websites spanning many different languages. Think of Penguin as a periodic filter that Google runs to catch websites with sketchy backlink profiles.

The Way Forward
There’s quite a bit to digest here. We have three events rolling out simultaneously but completely independent of one another. Obviously, checking your stats now would be an important move – you’ll want the real-time data to analyze later. However, you can’t make a definitive call about what (if anything) hit your site until a couple of weeks pass.
When the dust settles, you’ll begin to see a little more clearly where your sites have relocated in the search result pages. That’s when it’s time to break out the stats and analyze site details such as your backlink profile, your content, and your domain name.

Do you have an EMD with thin, mediocre content? Then the EMD update probably hit you. Don’t have an exact match domain, do have great backlinks but still felt the sting? Then it was likely Panda. Everything beautiful onsite but backlinks include some shady websites? Blame Penguin.
Once you know what hit your website, you can take corrective actions to fix the errors. The downside? You’ll have to wait until the refresh of the suspected algorithm attack to see if your website will bounce back. The upside? With a little work and the right analysis, your website’s position in the SERPs can be restored.