Is "Author Rank," User Comments Driving Losses for YMYL Sites?
-
Hi, folks!
So, our company publishes 50+ active, disease-specific news and perspectives websites -- mostly for rare diseases. We are also tenacious content creators: between news, columns, resource pages, and other content, we produce 1K+ pieces of original content across our network. Authors are either PhD scientists or patients/caregivers. All of our sites use the same design.
We were big winners with the August Medic update in 2018 and subsequent update in September/October. However, the Medic update in March and de-indexing bug in April were huge losers for us across our monetized sites (about 10 in total). We've seen some recovery with this early June update, but also some further losses. It's a mixed bag.
Take a look at this attached MOZ chart, which shows the jumps and falls around the various Medic updates. The pattern is very similar on many of our sites.
As per JT Williamson's stellar article on EAT, I feel like we've done a good job in meeting those criteria, which has left we wondering what isn't jiving with the new core updates. I have two theories I wanted to run past you all:
1. Are user comments on YMYL sites problematic for Google now?
I was thinking that maybe user comments underneath health news and perspectives articles might be concerning on YMYL sites now. On one hand, a healthy commenting community indicates an engaged user base and speaks to the trust and authority of the content. On the other hand, while the AUTHOR of the article might be a PhD researcher or a patient advocate, the people commenting -- how qualified are they? What if they are spouting off crazy ideas? Could Google's new update see user comments such as these as degrading the trust/authority/expertise of the page? The examples I linked to above have a good number of user comments. Could these now be problematic?
2. Is Google "Author Rank" finally happening, sort of?
From what I've read about EAT -- particularly for YMYL sites -- it's important that authors have “formal expertise” and, according to Williamson, "an expert in the field or topic." He continues that the author's expertise and authority, "is informed by relevant credentials, reviews, testimonials, etc. " Well -- how is Google substantiating this? We no longer have the authorship markup, but is the algorithm doing its due diligence on authors in some more sophisticated way?
It makes me wonder if we're doing enough to present our author's credentials on our articles, for example. Take a look -- Magdalena is a PhD researcher, but her user profile doesn't appear at the bottom of the article, and if you click on her name, it just takes you to her author category page (how WordPress'ish).
Even worse -- our resource pages don't even list the author.
Anyhow, I'd love to get some feedback from the community on these ideas. I know that Google has said there's nothing to do to "fix" these downturns, but it'd sure be nice to get some of this traffic back!
Thanks!
-
We have informational and retail websites where we put a LOT of effort into our content. We are trying to produce the best-on-the-web. All of this content is created and edited by people who have both formal education and deep experience in the content area.
There is no way that we would allow user-generated content on these websites - even though we are not in a YMYL (your money, your life) type of industry. User-generated content can be excellent, but a high percentage of it is deeply flawed and far, far below our editorial standards. We have experience people in our own industry who want to submit content but we reject it because it is below our quality standards.
The above is why we don't allow user-generated content based upon editorial standards.
I have read information published by Google where they say that a vigorous comment section can be a sign of a quality website. But, I believe that applies to content types where opinion, kibitzing and prattle are acceptable. However, medical sites (and other types of websites) are an entirely different matter. Low quality content can result in problems for the reader - even if it is in a comments section. Nobody knows exactly how Google views this, but I am going to protect my visitors from BS and poor-quality information.
-
Many thanks, EGOL. I agree that the author profiles need to be improved for sure.
What do you think about the possibility that user-generated comments on a health news site are a concern for Google, re: readers reading comments that are not created by established experts? Could user comments now be a negative ranking factor for health sites?
-
Magdalena's example shows that you understand the problem. Implementation might significantly improve your situation. And just as important... implementation will enable your visitors to see Magdalena's credentials. Do it for your visitors even if Google is not a concern. Your authors also deserve to have this work done.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can we ignore "broken links" without redirecting to "new pages"?
Let's say we have reaplced www.website.com/page1 with www.website.com/page2. Do we need to redirect page1 to page2 even page1 doesn't have any back-links? If it's not a replacement, can we ignore a "lost page"? Many websites loose hundreds of pages periodically. What's Google's stand on this. If a website has replaced or lost hundreds of links without reclaiming old links by redirection, will that hurts?
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Do I need to track my rankings on the keywords "dog" and "dogs" separately? Or does Google group them together?
I'm creating an SEO content plan for my website, for simplicity's sake lets say it is about dogs. Keeping SEO in mind, I want to strategically phrase my content and monitor my SERP rankings for each of my strategic keywords. I'm only given 150 keywords to track in Moz, do I need to treat singular and plural keywords separately? When I tried to find estimated monthly searches in Google's keyword planner, it is grouping together "dog" and "dogs" under "dogs"... and similarly "dog company" and "dog companies" under "dog companies". But when I use Moz to track my rankings for these keywords, they are separate and my rankings vary between the plural version and singular version of these words. Do I need to track and treat these keywords separately? Or are they grouped together for SEO's sake?
Algorithm Updates | | Fairstone0 -
Is user engagement a ranking signal?
Read something about user engagement might be a signal that Google uses, along with links and on-site optimisation, to decide if a search result goes up or down. What should I believe and what are the developments in this field?
Algorithm Updates | | MozzieJr0 -
Does Bing Support same sitemap for full site, mobile, and images?
We have 1 sitemap for our desktop site, mobile site, and images. This works for Google, but I'm not sure if it's supported by Bing or if they require separate sitemaps. Anyone know?
Algorithm Updates | | YairSpolter0 -
We have a terrible, severe loss in our Keywords rankings this week, can you please help us what would happen in only 7 days ?
On the date 3rd of October we had almost 55 Keywords up and 44 almost down, Today after 7 days there is a severe drop 90 keyword is down, 7 only are up, and that's one website. My other website had 57 words up and 175 down. Our strategy in building backlinks: Directory submissions, article submissions and some blog commenting, we keep into consideration to choose only websites with high page rank (Page Rank 2 and higher). Also we had an updated on one of our websites since 1st of June a new URL structure, content, new pages and sitemap. Both websites has tons of keywords that we worked on increasing its rank and some we haven't touch them and its ranks was decreased. Does the new Google "hummingbird" have something to do with that? is there anything wrong with our strategy? Please provide us with your feedback ASAP.
Algorithm Updates | | ali8810 -
Why is site dropping in rank after we update it?
One of our sites - supereyes.com - appears to drop in rank after we update it. The client notified us of this today and I've verified that it did indeed drop in Google -- four spots since last week. He says this happens every time we make changes to the site, but then a week later it will go back up and is usually higher than where it was before. I have not verified this, but I'm very worried it may not rise again In the past week, we've posted a new blog entry to their site and we've changed some of the content -- specifically, added their locations to the header, added a contact page and put two testimonials in their sidebar. We've also had someone submitting their site to directories and local business sites like Angie's List and so forth. There are about 16 new backlinks established in the past 2-3 weeks. Also, I should note, traffic is higher than it's ever been, but the client doesn't look at traffic. They only look at their Google results. Can anyone offer any insight into what's going on here and if I need to be worried the site won't rise again in the rankings?
Algorithm Updates | | aloley0 -
Google Algorithm Update .. Author-rank finally kicking in ?
These few days I've been seeing great movement of my sites growing by 70-100% in traffic spikes. Some how I think this has something to do with AuthorRank maybe kicking in now as more of a factor in rankings? Anyone have an idea whats going on ?
Algorithm Updates | | NikolasNikolaou0 -
"We've processed your reconsideration request for www...." - Could this be good news?
Hey, We recently had a Google Penguin related links warning and I've been going through Google WMT and removing the most offensive links. We have requested resubmission a couple of times and have had the standard response of: "
Algorithm Updates | | ChrisHolgate
Site violates Google's quality guidelines We received a request from a site owner to reconsider your site for compliance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines. We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. We encourage you to make changes to comply with our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results. If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request. If you have additional questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.
" On the 5th September after spending another couple more days removing the most prolific offenders we resubmitted the site again and again got the automated response saying they had received our request. A week later on the 13th September we got a slightly different response of : "
We've processed your reconsideration request We received a request from a site owner to reconsider how we index your site. We've now reviewed your site. When we review a site, we check to see if it's in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines. If we don't find any problems, we'll reconsider our indexing of your site. If your site still doesn't appear in our search results, check our Help Center for steps you can take. " I left it another couple of weeks to see if we'd get a slightly more in depth response however so far there has been nothing. I'll be honest in not being entirely sure what this means. The e-mails says simultaneously 'We've now reviewed your site' (as in past tense) but then continues with "If we don't find any problems" which suggests a future tense. I’m unsure from reading the e-mail whether they have indeed reviewed it (and just not told us the outcome) or whether it’s just a delayed e-mail saying that they have received the reconsideration request. Of course, if I received this e-mail off anyone other than Google I would have thought I was still in the dog house but the fact that it differs from the standard ‘Site violates Google’s quality guidelines’ message leads me to believe that something has changed and they may be happy with the site or at least happier than they were previously. Has anybody else received the latter message and has anybody managed to determine exactly what it means? Cheers guys!0